Kingston Nature Reserve 8th August

Mike, Ann and Carina joined me for an enjoyable walk in Hayley Wood although, with very few flowering plants, insects were in very short supply. On the way home, I called at the Kingston Embankment Reserve (for details of the site see Ann Miles Blog: Walk to Kingston Embankment Reserve) and was delighted to find it full of flowering Carrot, Knapweed, Ragwort and Red Bartsia together with its special Bee Mellita tricincta. Lots of insects on the flowerheads including the strange Conopid Fly and a Gall Fly. Lots of Butterflies on the wing including a fresh pair of  Small Whites.

Focus Stacking Experiments

Surprisingly few fungi in Hayley Wood compared with others visited but we found enough to take a variety of focus-bracketed images. The fly is a stack from just 5 images (F16) before it took off!. The fungi used larger stacks with apertures of F2-F8 (15 hand-held images using Fuji X100V plus Raynox 150). 

Following a very comprehensive talk by Duncan on various software for focus stacking, I returned to the images of the Shining Ink Cap and processed one stack with Zerene Stacker using PMax (my usual method) and DMap techniques and also Photoshop. Certainly for this image, DMap gave the sharpest image with least aberration, followed by Photoshop while the PMax technique produced a strong halo.

Unexpected Encounter

I visited Hayley Wood late afternoon yesterday to photograph butterflies and on my way back encountered this Hare on the track ahead. He looked around, decided OK to feed and then after another look around came towards me, stopped, then came even closer filling the lens. As I zoomed out to the 100 mm end of the lens he spotted me and was off!!

 

Oxlips and Horsetails

 There are many more Oxlips in Hayley wood (lower image) than Waresley (top three) but there is a great deal of low bramble growth that makes photographing them difficult in the former. The giant Horestails outside Waresley Wood are also in full 'bloom' at the moment.