Evening stroll...

...in a small preserve area close to the Tauber Valley.

Today it's raining cats and dogs.

But yesterday my sweetheart and I enjoyed one of these perfect summer evenings with perfect mix of temperature, wind, sunshine and great nature.

Strolling along a narrow foot path of our small natural reserve was like a short getaway from daily routine.

As a reward making a stand against gravity and getting up from our sofa we had plenty of accidental meetings with the local "population": grashoppers, butterflies and various beautiful floral gems.

Here's a pair of Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) butterflies we call 'Schachbrett' (literally translated into chess board) in German.

The umbels of this species of grass glowed in the light of the low evening sun.

And here comes a trio of purple beauties...

brown knapweed - Centaurea jacea - Wiesen-Flockenblume

I assume this might be one of the Gymnadenia orchid species, but I'm not absolutely sure...

...and even here I was not sure what kind of beauty I had I front of my lens.

Does anybody know????

Ok, even the most beautiful evening must come to an end.

I hope you enjoyed our evening stroll.

A pleasant weekend to all of you!

Flap your wings!

Hi folks,

recent weekend I crawled around my favourite orchid meadon again.

But most of the ochids I found end of May and the beginning of June were already withered.

But I found two "new" orchids I newer saw before, because I never went orchid hunting end of June.

So if you are not yet fed up with looking at native orchids, here are my new arrivals:

This is Anacamptis pyramidalis, known as the Pyramidal Orchid, in German: Pyramiden-Hundswurz.

The arrangement of hermaphroditic flowers in a compact pyramidal shape is very distinctive

and gives the orchid its common name.

 This orchid is native to southwestern Eurasia, from western Europe through the Mediterranean region eastwards to Iran. In Germany, it is rare and was declared Orchid of the Year in 1990 to heighten awareness of this plant.

The second beauty I found on Sunday was...

...Gymnadenia conopsea / Fragrant Orchid / Muecken-Haendelwurz

This plant is quite common throughout northern Europe with the exception of the Dinaric Alps. 

In Asia it is common in areas to the north of the Himalayas.

But on Sunday there was much more to explore on my piece of dry grassland!

As far as I know this beautiful butterfly is called the Common Blue. 

In German the Polyommatus icarus species is known as Hauhechel-Bläuling and you find many of them on a stroll through the nature.

The yellow flower is a Inula hirta, in German Rauer Alant.

Large areas of the dry grassland were covered with it end of June.

But additionally to the Common Blue I took some pictures of two more butterflies:

Vanessa cardui, known as the Painted Lady, or in North America as the Cosmopolitan,

in Germany known as Distelfalter.

And even more beautiful (in my eyes) was...

...Argynnis adippe f. cleodexa = High Brown Fritillary, in German language: Feuriger Perlmutterfalter

Have a great and colourful workweek!

And flap your wings!

;-))