Showing posts with label Hornet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hornet. Show all posts

Sunday, October 8, 2023

Paxton Insects and Fungi

The Hornets are still busy at their nest in an old tree trunk at Paxton. I took one or two close-ups but decided discretion was the better option on a warm day when they were very active. It was UK Fungus Day yesterday (World Fungus week from 4th) and Hunts Fungi Group led our Annual survey of Rory's wood area and listed 40 different species - some were collected to check their ID. 

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Diversity in Garden Insects

The diversity of insects even in a relatively small garden is huge. Here two families -  Bees and Wasps and Hoverflies. The Hornet is our largest visitor to the garden - at the moment enjoying rotting fruit, with the Lasioglossum bees some of the smallest (here inside a single floret of Ragwort). The Hoverflies have all types of mimics including the Hornet mimic Volucella zonaria


 

Monday, September 28, 2020

RPS Nature Group Outing in an Autumnal Day

The Covid Regulation group of six braved the wind and dull light to photograph a variety of insects and fungi at Paxton on Sunday. Our finds included this very sleepy Hornet, a Lassioglossum bee, Male Chironomid midge with the amazing antennae, a jade-green Leafhopper, Wasp with prey, Greenbottle and several fungi including Shaggy Pholiota and a stemmed Puffball. I was experimenting to see whether flash or no flash worked best with shiny insects - overall I prefer the no flash but with light as bad as Sunday the flash did help keep the ISO down - as it was some were shot as high as ISO12800

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Close Up on Hornet and Bee

I decided to have a try at focus stacking a dead Hornet and Pantaloon Bee that I had collected over the summer before they completely fell apart. These are stacks 40 images F5.6 iso 200 lit by daylight lamps on each side. Amazing detail is brought out including all the detritus. The ' pantaloons' of the bee are its pollen gathering organs and you can see here how much pollen has been caught by the hairs.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Wimpole Walk

Another warm sunny day so a walk down from Eversden Woods to Wimpole Hall Gardens via the Folly gave lots of high contrast images. The dahlia is a stacked image -17 images using the Focus bracketing facility on the Fuji. More success with these hornets with flash on the macro lens but only attempted this once as they didn't like me that close!! 
 

 

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Two New Species in Toft, Cambridgeshire - Global Warming Effects?

 The hornet (Vespa crabro) is a big cousin of the wasp, and has become more common in the UK possibly due to global warming.  This is my first photograph taken Toft though have sighted it before. Definitely a new invader that is spreading north very quickly is the Ivy Bee (Colletes hederae).This bee was first recorded in the UK in 2001, it has now been found in much of southern England and Wales and in the Channel Islands.   
There is a mapping project for this - http://www.bwars.com/content/colletes-hederae-mapping-project

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Recent Insect Photographs

While our internet has been down for the last week or so (now reconnected), I have accumulated quite a few macro shots from Gamlingay Woods, Milton Country Park and Toft garden. The highlights were the Hornets catching and eating various Hoverflies in the Woods, the splendid Snail-Killing fly, Woundwort Shield Bug, Dark Bush Cricket and Southern Hawker from our garden and the Non-Biting Midge from Milton.



Ann Miles Photography - My Favourite Images of the Past10 years or so