Insects in the Rain

 With the wet and cooler conditions, most of the insects were resting up on or under leaves or in the grass during the last few days just coming out with the sun. Here a selection - most identified!

Bee-Grabber Flies and Flower Spider

This Myopa testacea, a Thick-headed  or Conopid fly, is also known as a Bee-Grabber as it does exactly that - travels to the top of plants and sits there waiting for a passing bee. It then attaches itself to the bee gaining entrance to its nest and laying eggs in the nest. The Myopa  larvae parasitze the bee larvae. These photo-stacked images show how wonderfully adapted it is for this with large upward facing eyes, powerful legs and sharp curved claws. The two head enlargements show the difference between a jpeg from in camera stacking and the same set of images, but the Raw versions processed first in DXO rawPrime 3 and stacked with Zerene Stacker. Final image focus-stacked flower  spider.

'Signs of Spring' Survey at Paxton Pits

 Our first survey of the year at Paxton is always along the main Heron Trail recording any wildlife (plants in leaf/flower, birds, insects). This is a useful year-to-year comparison. Despite the cold and blustery conditions, the sunny intervals brought out quite a bit of insect life. My favourite was the Simulid midge - minute but amazingly sculptured - it is on a nettle leaf so the stinging hairs give scale!!. We were pleased to see our new bee terrace being used - Andrena bicolor was the commonest bee recorded there.

Toft Invertebrates (1)

The insects are certainly getting active now with lots of different species of flies and plant bugs in the garden so I have quite a task to get them all identified and the species catalogued for my Toft list and recorded on i-record.

Focus-stacked Mosses, Lichens and Flies

We have traded in our Olympus OM-D EM-1 mark ii for another 2nd hand EM-1 mark iii as it has a few very useful features including dedicated exposure compensation and the ability to do an in-camera stack of 15 rather than 9 images. Here a few in-camera stacks of mosses and lichens in our churchyard and a couple of flies. The last image is stacked in the computer with Zerene stacker from the 15 RAW images processed with DxO PureRaw3; this gives a lot more detail than the in-camera jpeg and is obviously the best method for a quality images but the in-camera stacks are excellent for a quick image