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

 

Last Night's Storm in Cambridgeshire

Yesterday was very warm (22 degrees) and humid and concluded with a spectacular lightning display though we failed to get the much needed rainfall.

Toft Through an Infrared Camera

This time of year and sunny days are great for Infrared photography with the fresh green foliage and deep shadows. These are colour images that have been converted from the Raw using a camera profile made with the profile editor. On cloudier days when there is less infrared absorption they would have stronger colour hues.

 

 

Dawn in Toft

I chose to live in Toft more than 50 years ago because of the walks straight out of the front door and have never regretted it especially now that we are not permitted to travel for our exercise. Beautiful soft dawn this morning - the bird song was deafening in the Wood and a Barn Owl flew across the fields as I waited for the sun to come up (too distant for my lens).

Hoverflies

I was asked to share some of the Hoverfly images from my garden to help them identify what might be flying in their gardens so here are the species that have been flying in my garden so far this year. Most have no English name and many cannot be identified beyond the genus from photos. 

1,2. Eristalis pertinax

3,4. Platycheirus albimanus

5. Melanostomma scalare

6. Syrphus species

7. Rhyngia campestris

8. Epistrophe elegans

9. Episyrphus balteatus

10. Eupeodes spp.

 

Moon Rise, Moon Set

This month's full moon is known as the Pink Moon though it appeared more orange as it rose last night into the clouds. I went out early to capture it as it set though again it disappeared into the clouds before it finally set. Last image of the sunrise this morning.

Practising Macro in the Garden

Yesterday was for first day when there were enough insects around to make it worth dusting off the 80mm macro and flash and spending some time photographing the insects and spiders. This Peacock showed a bit of damage to the wing tips but the colours were still vibrant. A Chironomid fly (midge) presented a very much small subject together with Nursery Spider, small solitary bee species and a pair of Rosemary Beetles, the female showing impressive multitasking!!