33 Comments

These are such fantastic pictures - amazing details and colours.

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Thanks Catriona. I became curious about the bleached leaves of asphodel last winter, with lines that seemed to flow. Little did I realise then just what a colourful place it would turn out to be.

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Lovely work. I’ve been photographing nature for years and appreciate your writing and pictures which I have just found. I’m still trying to understand Substack. What do you mean by 25th in the Art and Illustration catagory?

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Thanks Graham. If you go to Explore you will find curated (?) or more likely AI lists for each of the Substack categories- https://substack.com/browse/art. How these are determined is a mystery - my understanding was that it they were drawn from publications that have large paid subscriber bases, so I didn’t expect to be there. My reference is something and nothing…

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Thank you for the bog and moss lesson, Michela. I enjoyed learning about their processes. Lovely images, too!

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Thanks very much Matt. Hopefully I didn’t veer into teacher mode - the one job that I knew was not for me!

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Absolutely beautiful image and so striking!

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Thank you Toni, I’m enjoying exploring this area.

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Congrats! Wonderful images.

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Thank you Brenda.

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The Common Hawker dragonfly photo may "not be the best image", but I'm still suitably impressed! ❤️

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😂 I didn’t want to use the excuse of equipment, but my old Canon has a fixed LCD screen which makes both this and the optical viewfinder challenging at ground level. Neither myself or my tripod are good at getting down this low!

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I used to have a right-angled eyepiece that clipped onto the viewfinder of my Canon

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Another really enjoyable listen … thanks once again for sharing …

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A pleasure Nigel. Great to hear that you enjoyed it.

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Thank you for narrating the post. Hearing you read truly enriched the content. All this is beautiful and peaceful, and I began to learn of the beauty of the bog and moss.

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You’re welcome Christina. I have to credit Sarah Fay with nudging me into adding voice overs. With time I’m becoming more comfortable with recording these, and slowly accepting the sound of my own voice thanks to kind comments such as yours.

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Such lovely photos and colours Michela. Here in Ireland we’re beginning to realise that bogs play a vital role in the balance of ecosystems and should be conserved and protected rather than exploited. And I was wondering when you would get to the dragon. ☺️

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The colour is striking, isn’t it? I was thinking earlier today about how commonplace it was to use bags of peat in the garden; I wouldn’t dream of doing so now.

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More fascinating facts and beautiful writing about mosses. I hold a particular fondness for Sphagnum mosses. Their role in Carbon Sequestration is vital!

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Thank you Paul, it’s certainly a journey of discovery and knowledge for me.

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Moss is such a fun thing to share with people. Although I've promoted and grown native plants for many years, most people are more interested in my Moss Lawn.

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Wonderful work Michela. I love the idea of autumn being ready to disembark. We don’t have enough bog and moss down here in the south, but I shall appreciate those little patches we do have all the more. Thank you.

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Thank you very much Finn. Don’t ask me where some of these words come from! There’s certainly a richness here that I haven’t encountered before.

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Beautiful photos, revealing the colours to be found!

Bogs are amazing places and sadly much undervalued.

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Thanks Juliet, I’ve been surprised by just how vivid the colours are.

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Beautiful images, lovely words. The Common Hawker image is an excellent abstact. All those reflections in the leaded glass wings..

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Thank you Ralph. This was the best of a handful and I too was fascinated by the wing detail. I can’t help but see a face in the abdomen.

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I love a bog, or where I am swamps and marshes! Lovely photos Michela!

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Thanks Pamela, this one is certainly full of surprise!

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I would just love to take a walk around that bog!

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Beautiful images Michela. These habitats are amazing and I've always enjoyed exploring them when I have been in Scotland.

I am currently reading a really beautiful book titled 'Twelve words for Moss' by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. I find your images as evocative as her writing.

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Hi Gill, I’m fortunate to have landed in a place with such interest. It’s a book I have hesitated to buy, having found ‘The Grassling’ a little convoluted for my taste - perhaps I should give this one a try. Needless to say the title does draw me. I love your choice of ‘evocative’ as it’s something I aspire to, thank you 🙏

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