Garden Species 18-20th April

Some garden species photographed over past 2 days - good to see a small Cuckoo wasp and the first Holly Blue. Otherwise a mix of species. First Red Damselfly in the garden today but wasn't carrying camera at the time (dates for previous years range from May 25th in 2010 to April 13th in 2020).

Garden Activity Increases with Temperatures

There was a definite increase in activity among the mini-wildlife in the garden yesterday with the warmer temperatures at last. The Red Mason bees were found coupled in various areas, while this is the first time I have recorded mating Pardosa spiders. I am always happy to photograph the wonderfully spotty/stripey Speckled Bush Cricket nymphs with lots of other species including several Shield and other Bugs (Parent, Birch Catkin Bug, Green, Hairy). Lots of Large Red Damselflies and the first Azure Damselfly.

Macro Continued Using Extension Ring

I spent a bit of time yesterday, trying out my Zeiss 50mm lens with a 16 mm extension tube. It was difficult to handnold at the correct distance as the depth of field is very small even at F22 so I used a monopod to support the lens. The bee is less than a cm and most of the subjects much smaller so some cropping still needed. The second image is the larva of the Marmalade Hoverfly (image 3) - great for gardeners as eats aphids. 

 

Experimenting with Lens Reversal for Ultramacro

I built an adaptor to reverse my legacy Olympus 50mm lens onto my Fuji XT-1 to try some ultramacro shots. These are taken at F16, ISO 1600, 1/180 with a bit of fill-in flash. Not a great success rate as I was hand holding with quite windy conditions. I will use with a tripod on a still day and see if I can get a bit more consistency. 

Progress Report on Wildlife in Garden

I am very pleased that I chose 2020 to make changes to the garden to further encourage wildlife. Ten days before Covid-19 Lockdown started in the UK, I gave a lecture to a U3A group on Gardening for Wildlife  where I outlined my plans which included turning the front lawn to a wildlife meadow, opening up the pond to give more areas of open water, having an area of perennial wildflowers and a larger seed bed area for annual wildflowers. Two days ago the first Large Red Damselfly emerged from the pond, the cowslips are coming into full flower on the 'meadow, Red campion is starting in the perennial area. In March Sadie and I built a bee hotel at the bottom of the garden and it is being investigated by various insects