A ROAD TRIP IN SEPTEMBER

It was a warm Saturday at the end of summer, and I went on a little trip around the northern part of Istra, the peninsula on which I live.

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I was mostly driving around and listening to the music from the car stereo, but I did stop on two occasions to stretch my legs and take a shot or two.

In this post, you'll see what I photographed along the road.

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Mostly nature ...

... the scenery ...

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... and some butterflies.

The first stop was near one of the canals of the river Mirna. About ninety kilometers from where I live.

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There, among the lush vegetation near the water ...

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... I photographed some plants in bloom. Here you can see the rounded clusters of small flowers on the fragrant Mentha aquatic mint. This thing is great for the herbal tee, so I picked a couple of branches.

In this photograph, you can take a look at the Lythrum salicaria flowers.

Lythrum salicaria doesn't grow in my southern seaside area of Istra so I have never seen these flowers before. Today, while writing the post, I found out that Lythrum salicaria can be used as an astringent medicinal herb to treat diarrhea, and that it's considered safe to use for all ages. God bless Wikipedia.

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The summer was hot and dry. In some places, the canal looked more like a puddle.

There, at the edge of the shallow water, I found a small frog.

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A young Pelophylax esculentus frog.

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This silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia) ...

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... was feeding on the flowers of the Succisella inflexa plant ...

... that grew near the marsh-like remains of the canal.

Here you can see a group of some relatively tall herbaceous plants that I wasn't able to identify, and in the following two photographs that form a single picture ...

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... you can take a look at the line of shrubs behind those plants. One photograph was taken with, the other without the flash.

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Here you can take a wider look at the scenery around the canal.

At the end of this part of the journey, before entering the car ...

... I took two simple, generic shots of the woods that were bordering the road.

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Here you can see the country lane that brought me to the canal.

This portrait of a town on the top of the hill was taken ten to twenty kilometers from the valley of the river Mirna. The name of the town is Motovun.

Here you can take a look at the fields beneath one of the smaller hills in that area.

I parked the car by the side of the road ...

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... a couple of hundred meters from the village called Kaldir ...

... in a place with a great view of the surrounding scenery.

With a bit of zooming (I mean, with a lot of zooming actually) I was able to take a good look at many distant details.

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The leaves of the Cotinus coggygria shrubs that grew on the slopes near the road ...

... were already started getting their autumnal colors.

Here you can see the green foliage with just a bit of dark red on the edges of some leaves.

This leaf has gone much further down that road that leads to the fall.

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Cotinus coggygria is a beautiful deciduous plant that provides a nice variety of colors through its changing leaves ...

... so I took plenty of photographs around these shrubs.

With all those shades of red, green, and violet displayed on the foliage, it was inevitable.

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In this photograph, I zoomed in on what looks like a pretty large farm in the valley.

Here you can see a solitary tree on the border between two agricultural fields.

The sky was mostly cloudy. Mostly, but not completely covered with layers of clouds. As I was photographing the landscape, the light was constantly changing. Slightly but constantly. If you carefully compare this photograph to the following one ...

... you'll notice these small changes. I also zoomed in a bit more here.

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Through this and the following photograph, I can better show you the change in the ambient light. In this shot, Lindar and the scenery around it are very uniformly lit, the background is a bit brighter so the town doesn't stand out and therefore the photograph is pretty bland. Definitely, not a great portrait of Lindar. Now, try to take a look at the following shot with this photograph in mind.

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In this case, the importance of small changes in photography is clearly visible. In the following photograph ...

... the focus is on the vegetation again.

Under the line of shrubs, closer to the road, I photographed the Eupatorium cannabinum, a plant that I don't remember seeing before. Like many other plants from the northern part of Istra, the Eupatorium cannabinum can't be found in the south. Many plants from my area, can't be seen here in the north, of course.

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Here you can see another bunch of decorative, autumnal Cotinus coggygria leaves surrounded by the green summer foliage of the same kind of plants.

Here you can take another look at Motovun. In the following photograph ...

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... I zoomed in to take a better look at the line of buildings on the edge of town.

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I zoomed in even more here.

AND THAT'S IT. I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SHOW, SO THE POST ENDS HERE. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE JOURNEY. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.

THE END