Chilly day yesterday for an RPSNature visit to Rutland Water where Hobbies were definitely the stars of the day with several hawking in the sky from lunchtime onwards and one sitting on a post for a long wile before exiting front giving a disappointing shot for all the wait!! Lots of singing small birds including Reed Bunting and Sedge Warbler.
The light for our macro session on Tuesday at Paxton was just about ideal - bright but with some light cloud to diffuse the sunlight. As usual, the daisies were attracting lots of insects while the spindle bushes were full of Ermine Moth caterpillars walking (or hanging!) the tightrope threads. Last image - 'show a leg' was an obliging Honey Bee that lifted its leg to show the diagnostic corbicula (pollen basket) which occurs in Apini (honey bees), Bombini (bumble bees), Euglossini (orchid bees), and Meliponini (stingless bees) but not in Andrena (mining bees) etc.
We were pleased to find some very obliging Mayflies on the wing during our morning Macro session at Paxton Pits on Tuesday and even more delighted to witness the Hobbies hunting around the Lakes in the afternoon no doubt catching lots of these mayflies, plus damselflies, and two new species to me Grouse Wing Mystacides longicornis (Caddis Fly) and Cataclysta lemnata, Small China-mark, is a semi-aquatic moth species with larvae that feed on duckweed and other floating plants.
The warm weather on Saturday brought out lots of insects and spiders. I was trying to concentrate on compositions rather than just unusual species looking for interesting backgrounds and different focus/exposure settings. ID sheet at the end
