The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The garden has an amazing collection of insects and spiders at the moment - each with its own place in the ecosystem from the snail-killing, gall-making and parasitic/scavenging flies to minute spiders lurking on the tops of flowers and many species of plant bugs some of which also predate caterpillars.

More Shallow Depth of Field Macro

I continued in the garden with a Canon 50mm macro lens on my Fuji so set wide open at f2.5 to give some very interesting closeups.

RSPB Sandy

 It is nearly 2 years since I visited RSPB at Sandy so today I took the opportunity to walk all round the reserve finishing at the impressive house and gardens. The trees as always are wonderful in their variety and stature. I forgot a spare battery so many of the photos are with my phone. I did take a couple of hoverflies, Hornet mimic and Pied Hoverfly early on.

Macro With the Hosebaby

  Last June, I attached a Canon macro lens to my Fuji via a piece of transparent hose giving a lens that acts like a Lensbaby in being able to move the focus point but also produces soft diffuse image due to the light coming in via the hose. Here are a few garden images taken with the Hosebaby today. 

The Small World at Paxton

 Last Tuesday, I took part in the monthly wildlife survey at a chosen area of Paxton Pits. This time it was the edge of one of the disused gravel pits and an area of meadow which was flooded all winter. There was a huge abundance and diversity of insects and other invertebrates so I could only record a fraction of the species. Here are some of the more photogenic subjects. The Green leafhopper comes in two forms - the first with jade green wing cases, the second with blue .