More Garden Arrivals

The midday sunshine brought out a few more flies, bees etc in the garden.

Cucumber Spider

This little spider was hiding in one of the seed heads that I cut down in the garden and made a perfect model to try out the 90mm Macro lens. Image 2 is a photostacked image, others are single shots. The only other 'model' I found was a Blowfly and demonstrates the incredible sharpness of the lens.

Inverts Emerge from Winter Hibernation

As the temperature climbed to 19 degrees insects and spiders emerged from the vegetation. Gwynne's Bee is always one of the first to be recorded and please to see a Zebra Jumping spider holding the usual territory on the summerhouse wall

 

First Insects etc of the Year

 The warm sunshine yesterday brought out quite a lot of flies, spiders and bees in the garden. Recovering from surgery is frustrating as I can manage the camera and macro lens but no fill-in flash and chasing bees is definitely out! Anyway here five invertebrates to start 2025 garden records

Miniature Life in a Log Pile

It has taken a couple of days to process these images taken in one of the log piles in my garden - focus-stacked images with 60mm lens plus 26mm extension rings and natural light. The possible IDs are Trichia varia for the first and Hemitrichia spp for second - I need to photograph older stages to be sure according to expert advice. I like the orange peel surface on the first. The next six are various slime moulds (I think) and then a couple of fungi species (Henningsomyces candidus and ?), , finishing with an incredible spider sac with mesh bag - not yet identified to species but so intricate and colourful. 

 

Wider Angle Macro

 As my 60mm macro stopped focusing suddenly and seems to be permanently, I tried my 18-45 mm lens with the Raynox close-up filter. Here a few examples of what is still active in my Cambridge garden. Most taken at the 45mm end but the Cricket and Flower spider were at the 18mm end.

Lots of Insects in Ivy plants

Lots of different Fly species, Box Bugs,and other Hemiptera, Spiders and Ivy Bees feasting on the late nectar in the Ivy Flowers