Dragonflies, Damselflies and Orchids at Paxton

Every third Thursday in the month Paxton Pits runs a Nature Walk and I often act as back-up leader as today. The dominant wild life were the dragon and damselflies including Scarce Chasers, 4-spot Chasers, Keeled skimmer, Banded Demoiselle, Green Eyed Hawkers, Common Blue and Blue-tailed Damselflies plusPyramidal Orchid (with Cone-head Grasshopper) and Bee Orchid

Ludlow's Miniature Wildlife

The banks of the River Teme were alive with insects and spiders yesterday despite the general lack of sunshine. Here a selection of some of the bizarre and beautiful species I photographed.

Bedfordshire Damsel and Demoiselles - Wide Angle Shots

It has become an annual pilgrimage to visit a Bedfordshire site and sit in the brook for an afternoon photographing White-legged Damselflies and Banded Demoiselles. Last year I recorded video (link at end of post); this year as well as using a long lens for flight etc (post to follow), I had fun stalking the insects with a wide-angle lens and photographing them in their habitat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNvglZ-bMvs

CCC Outing to Grantchester

Eighteen members of our camera club met up for a walk along the river in Grantchester. I travelled light with just my X100V compact and a closeup filter. I wanted to capture the abundant Banded Demoiselles and Mayflies in their habitat as with images 3-5 but I also took some at wide aperture that needed focus stacking to complete. 

As the Fuji does complicated multiexposure, I also played around with that using different blending modes and some intentional camera movement.

 

Looking to the Skies Versus Bee Mimics

I took a circular walk around Lark Rise Farm in Barton, an organic farm run by the Countryside Restoration Trust, with the view dominated by the Radio Telescopes at Lord's Bridge quivering in the heat haze. However, I spent my time looking downward at the insect life and became aware of a number of Hoverfly mimics of the Bumblebee species (shown in pairs with hoverfly on the left). There are some wonderful meadows there - how English Meadows should look with lots of Damselflies and Banded Demoiselles.