That's very pretty. What type of tree is that?

Gordon I know next to nothing about trees, my best offering is "A white one" :-)

A month later, and significantly further north, spring has got its second wind, and I've never seen so many white trees so thickly covered in blossom.

From the canal bank ...


... to the golf course.


The valley bottom ...


... to the hill tops.


They're all over the place!

I think most of these are probably common hawthorn or May Blossom - more a hedgerow bush than a tree. The one in front certainly is, but the big domed one on the other side of the valley might be different. In England, it's a common decoration for pagan rites of spring, like morris dancing.


And a pollinator claims his reward. :-)

Lovely photos, Richard.

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~Sue~

That is an awesome picture Gnu.

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Grant
Darwin NT

That is an awesome picture Gnu.

+1

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

That is an awesome picture Gnu.

+2

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~Sue~

Last night here in south London we had one of the worst storms I can remember, constant thunder and lighting every few seconds and torrential rain.

It was around midnight and I decided to try and capture it on video, trouble is it goes from dark to brilliant light so quickly the camera has trouble keeping up.

I did get this.



turning the camera a bit a few seconds later I got this.



Also the rain caused minor flooding on the road outside.



Again a still from video, so not wonderfull quality.

Those lightning photos are actually very eerie with the contrast. I like them.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Last nights storm even made it onto the BBC News page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44269304

The one by Reuters, near the top of that series, is weird, with the polygon looped around it.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Last nights storm even made it onto the BBC News page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44269304

It was the thunder we heard more than anything.

Poor Toby could not make up his mind whether to bark - hide under the chair I was sitting on or try to sit on my lap.

With the size/strength of him it was no fun at all, Lady just lay there ignoring it all with just an occasional lift of an ear with the bigger rumbles.

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Kevin

Well it's been a really nice hot day here today and as I was preparing my evening meal, I happened to glance out my north facing kitchen window.



That was a close up. when I zoomed out



Pretty spectacular!

More thunder and rain is forecast, might just be here soon!!

Is that what's called a lenticular cloud?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Is that what's called a lenticular cloud?

no, that's a hammerhead or anvil.

@Bernie
I know what you mean by fast lighting flashes. I filmed this storm a while back with my iPhone 4S. I just uploaded it to YouTube.
Fast cloud to cloud lighting.

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That's pretty cool, Admiral; well, actually probably pretty hot! I just read something in the paper yesterday about the difference between negative and positive lightning. It said 95 % of the ground strikes are negative charges, but the small amount that are positive charges are a lot stronger and can be as much as 300 thousand Amps and a billion Volts! ~My source on that was Marilyn vos Savant's column in the Parade supplement of my Sunday local paper.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

seen one Lightening once in New Mexico[ snow storm type and I MEAN Katy bar the door when both storms came togther.
we had so much snow in short order. Oh I have been in some real bad ones before.
but Katy wasn't home either.

My elephant ears are really growing quickly! This is the first time I've grown them. There are three plants here. The one with the biggest leaf is the one that started growing last.



And this is Ziva. She's a few years old.

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~Sue~

Nice plant and nice cat, your life is good.

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Nice plant and nice cat, your life is good.

Well, it doesn't suck.

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~Sue~

Taken from my kitchen window yesterday at 7pm.



On my phone.