Cowslip, Lady's Smock and Ransoms

The spring flowers are at their best at the moment so I spent a bit of time over the last few days trying to get shots that give a feeling of their beauty. The first, second and seventh images are focus stacks, the rest single exposures in various light conditions. The Cowslips attract a lot of insects including greenfly in the first image and Bibio flies in the last two. 

Insect Life in the Comfrey

The sunshine yesterday brought out a variety of imsects and spiders to bask on the comfrey leaves including the Green Nettle Weevil, various fly species (House Fly, Female Phasia hemipera, Scorpion Fly), a Wolf Spider, Plant Bug, Scarlet Tiger Caterpillar, a Small Spurwing May Fly and a Stone Fly

Find the Dipper

Spent an hour or two yesterday marvelling at the camouflage of the Dipper in a sunlit stream, its feathers echoing the ripples in the water. This bird was very busy feeding youngsters under the bridge I was standing on.

Ducklings and a Mistle thrush fledgling

Granville Country Park, Shropshire

 Granville is a large and wildlife-diverse nature reserve. Nature is reclaiming it after centuries of industrial activity, which finally ceased when Granville, the last deep mine in the county, closed down in 1979, bringing to an end more than 700 years of coal mining in the area. The trees looked magical in the shifting light yesterday.

Sunset Walk Around Local Pond

 A Blackcap enjoyed the last light of the day and, while a female Moorhen protected her offspring, the male delivered various morsels to her. They are nesting in Bog bean (Menyanthese trifoliata) a good native plant that forms floating mats providing nesting sites for birds and egg laying sites for dragonflies.