Looks Like Bumper Year for Starling Chicks

Our feeders are visited several times a day at the moment by a flock of starlings. We are greatly entertained by their antics - the adults working very hard to keep all the mouths fed.

Cambridge Lockdown Images

 Yesterday we made the short drive into Cambridge to take our 'exercise' as permitted and to record how the city looks in this interim period of  Lockdown with some food shops and Market stalls open and large amounts of repair and construction work in progress but very few other people so it was easy to maintain social distancing. 

(Because I make a diary book from my blog each year, I am including a brief summary of the progress dates and stages for future reading when, hopefully, this will all be over and details begin to fade. As a result of growing number of cases and deaths from Covid19, on March 16, people had been told to avoid all non-essential contact with others and four days later, on March 20, all bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants were closed. Subsequently all schools and childcare facilities, except for the children of key workers, were closed. March 23rd Lockdown began and people were not be able to leave their home without one of four key reasons: shopping for food and other necessities; to exercise alone or with someone from the same household (only to happen once per day); for medical issues, including providing care to others; and to travel to and from work. From May 13th the rules relaxed somewhat: people who aren't able to work from home should be looking to return to work (not in the hospitality sector) and people can take "unlimited" amounts of exercise and drive further to exercise. From June 1, outdoor markets and car showrooms will be allowed to reopen in England. In addition to this non-essential retailers will be allowed to re-open from June 15.)

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. 

 

Yesterday, we did a different local walk through a very large Barley field over the hill to one of the local golf courses. It was windy and cloudy when we started but the skies later cleared giving much more contrasty conditions. 

A Bit of Fun During Lockdown

Sadie and I spent the day compiling a Video entitled Hedgehogs like to Boogie.

you can view the result here

https://youtu.be/sU5kQUEK5Ag

Photographing a Leaf Insect Egg with Coupled Lenses for Extreme Macro

Having used the setup with a single reversed lens (image of set up at end of this post), I decided to try the two-connected-lens technique for extreme macro.The set up included glueing two filter rings together with the screws to the outside to allow two lenses to be connected lens to lens. I used the Olympus 50mm with aperture set to 1.8 and a 10-24mm Fuji lens. The Fuji needed to be used at 24mm zoom length to give sufficient circle of view. It was mounted onto a focusing rail over a lightbox. The egg is only about 2mm and the focusing distance less than 1cm so an LCD light was needed to get light onto the subject. Also photographed an Eyed Moth wing - shows the individual scales in detail (first image). The second moth wing and the White butterfly wing were photographed with the single reversed Olympus 50mm lens.

Four-spotted chasers Emerging from Our Pond

I missed the first 3 or 4 emergences from the pond this year, though one later visited the pond most days. So I was pleased to find two yesterday morning and cover the stages showing just escaped from the larval case to just beginning to colour up on the wings.