Balloon over Toft

The noise of the burner alerted us as this splendidly red balloon came right over our bungalow.

The light was so clear that you might even be able to recognise someone on board. It must have been a wonderful sight looking down from there. The balloon landed only a few fields away towards Comberton but there were trees masking my view of the touch down.

Dragonfly egg-laying

A couple of images of an Emperor Dragonfly laying its eggs on water weed stems. I liked the ripples in the first shot and the Common Blue damselfly resting on the dragonfly in the second. I will have to have another go using a tripod with a slower shutterspeed to get a smaller aperture and hence more depth of field. These were 1/800th shutterspeed

and f7.1/f8 aperture.

Burwash Manor Farm

Spent a very pleasant afternoon at Burwash Manor Farm being shown around by the owner Michael Radford. The farm is run organically with plenty of areas set aside for wildlife. For more details, see http://burwashmanorfarm.com/

There are strips of land seeded with local wild flowers - beetle banks to encourage beneficial insects such as ground beetles that consume slug eggs and other species that predate aphids. Lots of large skippers were enjoying the Greater Knapweeds that are just coming into flower.

There are also several shallow ponds which encourage several dragonfly species and also ducks - this baby mallard had got separated from its mother and travelled at high speed to catch up.

Not a very good picture of a female Black-tailed Skimmer as it would insist on landing on the ground so the wings could not be seen.

Paddington

Four 'pattern' pictures taken around Paddington Station area. A celebration of steel and concrete

Heron

This heron appeared in front of me in Regent's Park and I was holding an infrared camera with a 50mm lens

More Reapeating Patterns

Three enigmatic views while walking from Kings Cross to Paddington

The waiting game

A few images from my journey by train to Bath. All have an element of waiting.

The many repeated objects in the last image appealed as well as the cones

Four-spotted chaser

A visit to Wicken Fen provided an opportunity to photograph a Four-Spotted Chaser that had just emerged from its larval case. I used various lens combinations to see what worked best. In each of the pairs, the first is the 50 macro lens with converter to give life size and with a ringflash. The second is the 100-400mm with a 25mm extension tube used at 400mm end in second photo and 100 end in fourth.

Travels with the Infrared

Some images from trip to Kings Lynn to lecture - not very good weather but took a few shots with the infrared camera.

The daisies are from a layby on the Papworth bypass - never seen quite such a profusion of blooms.

Peppered Moth

Very pleased to catch a Peppered Moth in my light trap last night as it was very much part of my biology teaching through the years. When first studied 200 years ago, all moths were like this one, pale and speckled and so hidden from predators on lichen-covered branches. With Industrialisation, lichens died out and trunks were generally soot covered. This led to the selection of the naturally occurring dark forms and predation of the light forms. The melanistic form predominated up to the second half of the 20th Century.

With the advent of smoke-free zones and the loss of heavy polluting industry, the light form is now reestablished.

Newly emerged dragonfly

This dragonfly emerged from its larval case yesterday morning in a neighbour's pond. The full colouring develops gradually during the day. Any ideas on identification from your book, Sue.

Few more from Ely Eventing Day

A few images taken at 1/1000th second rather than the slower shutterspeed of yesterday's posting.

Ely Eventing

I tried various techniques at this event and found that panned shots at 1/200th second gave the best spray. I will post some faster shutterspeed images later.

We had been at this event for 7 hours when Bryan rightly suggested we should go back and start downloading the numerous images. I said 5 more horses or 5 minutes more at the water splash. The this happened. Fortunately neither rider nor horse were injured though the rapid inflation of the safety jacket caused some discomfort.

Figure Eighty Moth

I have put the moth trap out a couple of evenings and have trapped some of the larger species - hawk moths in particular (see separate moth page) but this is my favourite so far - its name Figure of Eighty is totally appropriate. It has amazing green eyes and striped legs

Fenland Railway

Some images of the Level crossing at Pymore - not sure how I will finally process and print the images but quite like this old feel to the photos - they remind me of the sort of prints that you see in some self-catering cottages that have been on the wall in the sun for a long time and faded

The Fens

Wonderful skies today after yesterday's heavy rain.

A few images here from my trip to Pymoor - thanks to Martyn and Tatt for their hospitality and I hope Photoshop is doing what you want!!

Trying Longer Macro Lens

Bryan kindly lent me his Sigma 180 mm Macro lens so I took it Damselfly photographing at Paxton Pits. I like the distance that you have between subject and lens but find that to handhold the long lens requires a fairly fast shutterspeed and so depth of field is fairly limited on the resulting aperture. The two images above were taken with the 180 macro and are Blue-tailed Damselfly and immature male Common Damselfly

The paired Common Damselflies and the Female Azure were taken with the 50mm plus life-size converter, a combination that is easier to handhold and has a greater inherent depth of field. The latter is an advantage in getting all the damselfly in focus but gives a less neutral background.