16th August Garden Cameos

Sometimes photos taken mainly for identification and record purposes turn out to be very attractive studies of light and colour - this Lasioglossum Bee just caught the sunlight in a shadier part of the garden. Good to have a new Dragonfly visitor this season as a Migrant Hawker dropped in and rested on a cane for a while (in-camera stacks). Otherwise Flower Spiders, Woundwort Shieldbugs and the plant bug Dicyphus epilobi were all present where expected on 'Flowers', Hedge Woundwort and Greater Willowherb as their names suggest!!

Orchid Time

As expected the orchids are out much earlier than say 10 years ago despite the present cooler weather - the Common Spotted Orchids and Man Orchids are mostly fully out and Pyramidal are coming out. As usual I was looking for insect pollinators but only found this Flower Spider!. The last two pairs of images are experiments with the new tools in Lightroom for Lens Blur - very impressive and going to give some headaches deciding what is acceptable for Natural History Distinctions (other images the backgrounds are as taken!).