Sunflowers, bees and lakeside flowers.

Unfortunately the previous weekend ended with a rather dreary rainy Sunday, luckily on Saturday the weather was good, save for a few brief rain showers and some intermittent cloud cover.

Went out and after a late lunch on a restaurant terrace overlooking a small lake, took a stroll through the adjacent nature park.

In a forlorn corner near some trees by the edge of the lake, spotted a row of sunflowers which were the target of some avid bees.

While nice, the park and lake weren’t very impressive in terms of various flora. Only saw a few flowery plants here and there, so definitely wanted a photo of these lovely purple ones.

Was able to photograph these sunflowers while the sun was shining, which gave them a nice colorful punch. It became overcast later on, so unmounted the polarization filter and also had to increase the shutter time.

There were a few flowers as this one on a small bush, most had wilted away though. Too bad I had left my bag with tripod and macro lens in the car, else could have gone for a macro shot of the water drops on the flower and buds.

Next to regular bees, the sunflowers were also visited by bumble bees like this big fellow who seemed to leisurely rest on the sunflower without moving much.

Carrying the Canon 450D with the 15-85mm is hassle-free, it’s a good general purpose, walk around lens, nonetheless sometimes do wish I had a more convenient camera bag like a Tenba Shootout Sling type instead of the Canon Gadget 10EG.

You can always see more of my photos on Flickr.