Beewolf Wasps

We made a brief visit to the Beewolf Wasp colony near Sandy to assess the activity and found them very active as two trail bikes had just driven through and obscured their burrow entrances. Always fascinating to watch them come in carrying their Honeybee prey and try and locate their burrow entrance without upsetting the neighbours! It was windy and overcast so not the best for getting shots.

Herons Nest Building

We spent a very enjoyable hour or so watching Herons collecting nest materials.They were collecting both from the trees themselves - mainly willow - and from the ground and often seemed satisfied with even a quite small twig though they returned fairly quickly then to collect another!

Black-Headed Gulls Miscellany

We didn't visit any bird reserves etc while we were on the Isle of Wight as Sarah didn't bring a long lens but there were plenty of Black-headed Gulls to practise on in all kinds of light and weather conditions!

Action at Lackford Lakes

A very enjoyable day at Lackford Lakes with CCC Nature Group. I concentrated on two 'projects': macro with wide angle lens (to follow!) and action shots of birds and insects. The Dragonflies and the Hummingbird Hawkmoth were taken at 1/4000th except the first image, at 1/1000th - surprised that there is little difference in wing movement (the Darter was on electronic shutter and shows the bend in the wing). The Migrant Hawkers were hovering for quite extended periods in the strong breeze! The bird were at 1/2000th - I do like the levitating Nuthatch. The Hummingbird Hawkmoth was quite worn around the tail area but was still very manoeuvrable. The eyes are wonderful - I am on an insect vision project at the moment so very useful captures.

Summer Leys Rescue and Flight Challenges

We spent a very enjoyable day at Summer Leys Nature Reserve, Northampton, mainly doing macro photography of the insects etc but we also visited the bird feeding station and the round pond where were delighted to be able to rescue this Red-eyed Damselfly from a spider's web. There were lots of juvenile birds while the adults were looking very tatty and many were in moult. They were  lit by the sunlight against the dark woodland as they visited the feeders and made challenging flight subjects.