Eleven days ago, on the 18th August 2021, I was driving around the inland area about 40 kilometers from my seaside home. I stopped quite a few times along the way ....
... the drive was interrupted by a long walk across the sunny meadows ... and some short walks in different enviroments.
Although, these open meadows around the town called Zminj share some similarities with the coastal meadows around my hometown called Medulin ...
... some insects that can be regularly seen here, I never encountered in my area.
This butterfly, the Arethusana arethusa, is one of them.
Here you can see the Erigeron annuus flowers. This plant doesn't grow in my seaside area.
While sniffing around the dry grass, I found also this fluffy little thing. It looks like some kind of cocoon, something made by a caterpillar or a spider. I can't tell you what is this exactly.
The Arethusana arethusa, commonly known as the False grayling, were numerous, but they weren't easy to approach ...
... and at times they were also hard to spot. With their shape and patterns in shade of gray and brown, these butterflies easily disappear in the summer landscape painted with earthy colors.
Here, you can take a look at some small oak trees in the strong midday sun.
With the spurge plants in the picture and the oak trees hidden behind the line of horizon, the inland meadow looks exactly like the coastal meadows that appear so often in my posts here on HIVE.
False grayling is here to make a difference.
If I zoom out a bit, another difference can be seen ...
... the trees. In my coastal area, the scene will have some evergreen shrubs, tree heather and laurel, instead of this deciduous oaks.
Since the day was pretty hot, I gladly spend some time in the shade of the trees. Here I took a portrait of this leaf ...
... and I found some small butterfly from the Lycaenidae family.
The oak trees in this post, are the Quercus pubescens oaks. Under one of these trees ...
... on the Eryngium campestre plant that grows on the coastal meadows as well ...
... I photographed yet another false grayling.
On this photograph, extremely similar to the previous two :) but with slightly different light, you can see the good ol' Arethusana arethusa, the main protagonist of this post, feeding on the tiny Eryngium campestre flowers surrounded by thorns ... and on the following shot ...
... taken a couple of days later on the coastal meadow about 4 kilometers from my hometown, you can see the Maniola jurtina butterfly feeding on the Eryngium amethystinum plant ... so you can compare these very similar plants and butterflies.
After taking a few more shots in this place ...
... after some more foliage ...
... and the last look at the false grayling ...
... I sat in my car and continued the journey. Half an hour, and a couple of small villages later, I parked by some tall trees ...
... because I noticed an isolated old building across the road. It looked like a cool addition to the post, so I took this shot ...
... and came closer. An interesting, accidental artwork was displayed on the decaying facade.
Behind the building, I found this elegant old well ...
... and in one angle of the facade, on the older layer uncovered by the decay, I noticed some very old writings mentioning Yugoslavia ...
... and some political claims about the people that want to be part of that, now dissolved state. This is something written immediately after the WW2, probably in the first days or weeks after the war, with plenty of tensions between Italy and Yugoslavia.
About 10 - 15 kilometers further ...
... near the crossroad with a strange stop sign ...
... and the small bus station, I stopped again.
There was a vineyard behind the station ... and behind that vineyard and some houses ...
... some cool mountains were displayed.
Here, at the edge of my camera's zooming capabilities, you can see some antennae and stuff on the mountain.
After taking this shot with the moon above the tall tree near the buss station, I drove away ...
... and then stopped 5 - 6 kilometers further. A truck was parked in front of me, and this view at the town on the hill has a bit of that tuck in it.
Here you can take a better, more zoomed - in look at the town called Pitchan.
On another, more distant hill, I photographed the church of another small town, don't know which one exactly. After this shot, I sat back in my car, and the journey continued.
The next stop was in the industrial zone near the port of the town called Plomin.
Here I photographed this tall chimney ...
... and some other industrial stuff in front of me.
On the hills behind me, as the moon was climbing in the sky ...
... I photographed the old town ...
... through the power lines.
This was the last stop.
Soon I was driving home.
As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.
