A weed, my mate Bruce, and Ronda doorways.

This absolute beauty, the Knapweed or Centaurea pullata, happened to be sitting pretty in full sun the other day when some friends took us for a walk in the Andalucian countryside. We were actually within the Grazalema Natural Park boundaries but only ever on public walkways and private farmland, so I was very lucky to capture this fantastic specimen.

Let me tell you if you ever want to see some really attractive wildflora and you happen to be in Andalucia make sure you stop your car and go for a walk. BTW, did I impress you with knowing the name of the flower, ahem, I may not be the most knowledgeable botanist the world has ever known but I make an effort. Cough.

Truth be told, when you're in countryside like this you tend to see the same plants every step you take but with the number of pigs, goats, sheep and cattle that abound it can be really difficult to find such wonderful examples of flowers, even if they are a weed, on the other hand, every plant can be a weed if it's in the wrong area, and here in the country they just seem to fit in so I decided to take the picture. When you look into the center of the flower it looks very alien, imagine if that was an alien's mouth, arghgh.

I'd hate to be an ecotourist in Spain who doesn't know what to look for, I mean I was super impressed with a weed, luckily our friends know the area well they run ecotourism holidays in Spain.

The next picture is a Large Tortoiseshell butterfly I managed to photograph as it was sunning itself on the rocks. Interesting thing about butterflies, they stop to get the sun so if you lean over them and your shadow hits them they immediately fly off. Did you know that? Will it make you a better photographer? Definitely helped me. It's only the second butterfly I've photographed here but this time it didn't fly away, whereas the Spanish Festoon kept fluttering from flower to flower and me getting scraped and scratched for a photo I wasn't happy with anyway.

I do like taking photos of butterflies, I have this mental image of me being a younger David Bellamy excitedly exhorting my passion for these fascinating creatures, what a life that would be. So getting back to this rather mangy looking individual, it's obvious he/she is the local hero, endlessly fluttering from drama to the next, how else do we explain the ragged wings. Of course an alternative theory holds that it's just old and falling apart but I like the idea of my butterfly having escaped the jaws of a feral cat, or something else heroic. I even named him, yeah its a him now, he's Bruce the large tortoiseshell butterfly.

Now in my entry title I promised some Ronda doorways, these two photos were taken in the old town about 100m up from the puento nueve. I have no idea how old they are but they look great. The sun was hidden behind some clouds when both of these photos were taken so I had to crop quite tightly around the doorway otherwise I would have included the buildings as well, although honestly they were just white-washed buildings,the doors are far more impressive than the building. These examples are only to show you what you're missing out on by not being here and I have some weird stupid idea of photographing a bunch of doorways in Ronda and making up a gallery of Moorish architecture doors.