RSPB Sandy Heathland Fungi etc

A somewhat reduced party explored the heathland at Sandy in the afternoon and spent a couple of hours happily engaged with a large variety of species including this very impressive slime mould (many images are jpeg out-of-the-camera stacks as limited time to process at the moment). I also include a species sheet for the day

Toft Garden - Life on the Edge

 Sitting under my small oak tree (now about 25 years old), I became aware of how many small life forms exist on the leaves and also on the logs piled up nearby. First, a very small leafhopper (Ribautiana debilis), then a small booklouse family insect (Ectopsocus petersi) and a Pea gall caused by a small parasitic wasp. The logs are alive with life including Collembolid species and lots of fungi and lichens 

Paxton Stalk Balls and Scarlet Elf Cups

Winter Stalk Balls, Tulostoma brumale, are most commonly found on the coast in sand dunes etc but there is a good population at Paxton Pits on the gravel areas. Along with Pixie Cup lichens and Scarlet Elf Cup fungi they make wonderful macro subjects. As previous post, pairs of images - Raws processed with DxO Pure3Raw and  stacked in Zerene stacker in the computer next to in-camera stacks.

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

Under a Garden Log

As part of my project to record all the species in the garden, in winter I spend time photographing the fungi, mosses etc. Unfortunately a lot of them are very small stretching my macro capabilities. The first two are a couple of different crusts - very colorful with intricate scuplturing. I then located two very tiny slime mould fruiting bodies and a 3mm translucent white Spider/Harvestman plus other crusts and lichens. All will take some time (if ever to put a name to!!)