Three late flowers from high bog fringes:
Devilsbit Scabious:
Marsh Thistle:
And Knapweed:
I wonder if it's a coincidence that they're all purple.
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A regularly updated pictorial narrative of the wildlife around Raphoe, Co. Donegal, Ireland.
5 comments:
Those are superb portrait shots - don't tell me you finally got a shaft of sunshine?
No, I don't think it's a coincidence at all that they're all purple: throughout the year flowers tend to come in waves of all-white, all-yellow, all-purple - well almost! My guess is they are pollinated by the same group of insects, that happen to see best in that part of the spectrum; this may of course be affected by light levels changing through the year.
No sunshine. Those were taken in very poor light and massaged with Photoshop. The Scabious is a composite picure made from 2 exposures: one where the front florets were in focus and a second where the furthest florets were in focus. The two images were then 'healed' together , again using photoshop.
Most certainly, the purple flowers are of a colour that attracts pollinators: when they are in season (about July to September) they are well visited by bumblebees and hoverflies.
I was musing more about the predominance of the purple colour now that most pollinators are gone for the year. One of the ideas I considered was that of visibility in poor light (draw any remaining stragglers in from distance).
I like your reasoning.
Another purple one in flower (here) is Red Clover, Trifolium pratense.
The Devilsbit scabious were in flower here last month, and mostly blue. (although I must admit the blue ones were the ones I saw early October in Glengarriff Woods, and the purple ones I saw round Halloween at the Bantry Bay coast,
what it is in the purple colour I do not know, but I guess that the shape of flower also says something of how to survive autumnal storms?
The late Oxe-eye daisies here don't even spread/open the petals anymore, because of the weather.
Great photos of all the 3 subjects.
"The two images were then 'healed' together , again using photoshop." cunning plan - never tried that.
"I was musing more about the predominance of the purple colour now that most pollinators are gone for the year."
I suspect that it's partly just that these flowers already "know" to be purple - it would be even more extraordinary if they changed colour later in the season - but fascinating :-)
As for the visibility in poor light, you may well be right, remembering that insects see in a very different spectrum from us - lots of UV, which blue-purple flowers may well excite. My guess is they look very bright in UV, like some white flowers.
Nice photos
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