autumn flowers

Since completing my 14 days of home quarantine at midnight on Tuesday, I’ve been out for a long walk each day, partly because I needed the exercise after being cooped up for so long and partly to see what, if anything, had changed in the more than four months I’ve been away.

Naturally, I took quite a lot of photos, particularly of flowers, because, unlike in the UK, flowers appear all year round in the Hong Kong countryside. I can’t provide any specific identifications. I just like to see them. Some of the following photos are of species that I see all the time, while others, like the first photo, are of species that I was seeing for the first time ever:

The next photo was taken alongside our local river, which you can just make out in the background. This shrub is extremely common, although this is the only example that I’ve seen in the past few days:

The next two photos were taken in a public garden in Sheung Shui, which we just happened to pass through on our walk to North District Hospital, where Paula had a physiotherapy appointment:

I actually caught a small white butterfly in the act of slurping nectar from a flower that I think is a hibiscus:

The next photo was taken in the village of Ping Kong, which I decided to take a look around while Paula was in the hospital because, as a non-patient, I wasn’t allowed to accompany her inside due to covid restrictions:

I’d never seen any examples of the next flower before, although that is probably because I spotted it alongside a path that I’d only ever cycled along previously, and like many of the paths that I follow on a bike, you cannot afford to allow your attention to wander or you are likely to disappear off the edge:

However, I will keep an eye out for it in the future, because as this photo illustrates, there are more buds to burst out.

The next three photos were taken on the path that we follow when walking from our village into Fanling:

The next photo was taken in the village of Fu Tei Pai, a few kilometres east of Fanling. Paula thought that it must be related to morning glory, because the shapes of the flowers are similar. However, I think she’s wrong, because although both are creepers, the shape of the leaves is strikingly different:

The final photo was taken alongside ‘the eastern descent’, which is the most direct route from the walled village of Tung Kok Wai to the major traffic artery of Sha Tau Kok Road, which we need to cross on our way back home:

I certainly expect to take more photos of flowers in the coming months, but if I think they’re any good, I will probably include them in my next photographic highlights collection (see below).

more autumn flowers
Autumn Flowers #2
Autumn Flowers #3
Autumn Flowers #4