Bedfords Park Essex

Bedfords Park, a former mansion, is run as a nature reserve by Essex Naturalists Trust. A new reserve for me, it had an abundance of wildlife including these grumpy Red Deer, lots of butterflies including White-letter Hairstreak, Small Copper, Small Heath and Comma. Also lots of Hoverflies for me to identify! It commands superb views over much of east London and into Kent. The last photo looks towards Woolwich with Shooters Hill on the skyline - where I learnt all my wildlife as a child!!

Macro: Comparison Insects Taken with 50mm and c200mm Lens Systems

I used two different lenses while in Austria to record the insects - the 50-140 mm Fuji lens with 1.4 converter allowed insects to be photographed at a distance and gave some very sharp results. For smaller insects, the 50mm Zeiss Touit lens with the Metz ringflash permitted smaller insects, often only 5-10 mm, to be recorded. Need to test whether taking at f22 reduces the sharpness of the 50mm macro.

Austrian Mountains in Monochrome

The thundery weather that we had during our week in Austria resulted in some wonderful cloud formations. Perfect for a bit of Monochrome therapy even if three weeks late!

Common Terns at Clavering Lakes

This common Tern was repeatedly circling round one of the fishing lakes a Clavering. He eventually dived and caught a fish. I have never photographed male Mallard in full moult. The last image was taken with the Olympus OM1mkii and 300 f4 lens that Phil was trying out as opposed to the Fuji kit that I was using.  Difficult decisions ahead!

High-Speed Flash Photography of Insects in flight

We spent a very enjoyable day being shown and trying high-speed flash photography on Six-Belted Clearwings. Many thanks to Richard Revels for sharing his expertise. The techniques involves using multiple flash guns set to ETTL so that they reduce their power to a very brief flash that freezes the motion of the wings. The first shot is my best effort. If the ambient light is too bright as in the second shot, you get ghosting from movement of body and wings not overridden by the flash.

The males have six yellow bands but the females have only five so I think the third image is a female that appears to have the ovipositor extended. They lay their eggs in the roots of Birds Foot Trefoil.

Brighton West Pier - A Sad Tale

I spent quite a lot of time contemplating the sad remains of the West Pier at Brighton which has disintegrated over the years that I have visited Brighton. It was designed in 1863 by Eugenius Birch and was used for over a century before it became unusuable without rennovations which were being actively planned before the Pier tragically burnt down in 2003. It was designed to cope with the impact of the waves and featured an impressive network of cast iron columns and girders to support the promenade. The aerial shot image is as I remember it as a small child visiting from London - it was an impressive structure with fairground, ball room, bingo and more. The sunset was taken in 2001. There is still a very active group determined not to lose its history https://www.westpier.co.uk