Friday, May 20, 2022

Insects at Whixall Moss

In the afternoon at Whixall, most of the group on the RPS outing concentrated on the abundant wildlife around the pools by the canal at Whixall. My highlight was this Blue Shieldbug laying eggs on a piece of roof felting used as a ground shelter for reptiles etc. 

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

My Garden Meadow is Complete

Delighted that after three years effort, I have managed to establish Yellow Ratlle in my garden wildflower meadow. An annual wildflower that’s very beneficial to wildflower meadows as its roots attach themselves to roots of other plants, especially unwanted coarse grasses. Once attached they draw valuable nutrients from the grasses, thus weakening them, reducing the competition, allowing the wildflowers to flourish. At the moment, the meadow is yellow with Buttercups but among these there are Scabious, Bush Vetch, Germander Speedwell and White Campion in bloom. Around the shadier edges and in my separate 'uncut' meadow area, Dusky Cranesbill, Red Campion, Ribwort Plantain, Marguerites and Cow Parsley are putting on great displays


Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Experimenting with 'Infrared' Filters

 Malcom has kindly lent me some screw-on red filters with different wavelengths to simulate using a converted camera with an infrared- sensitive sensor.. The first six  were taken with a 680nm filter on my Fuji X100V - not a strong infrared effect but able to easily handhold. (1-6: ISO 3200 and the noise has not been removed' 1/30th sec F8). The last image is with the 850nm giving the characteristic white foliage but even at F2 difficult to get enough light to handhold so more trials needed with tripod etc (ISO 3200 F2 1/60th). 





Monday, May 16, 2022

Second Visit to the Pools

This Reed warbler sang almost continuously on both my two visits to Venus Pools. It was the closest bird I photographed.  The Goslings and the Heron also obliged but this is a place where a very long telephoto lens would be very beneficial. Lovely to watch and listen to the birds regardless.

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Ducklings Versus Midges, Shropshire

 Yesterday's sunshine brought out the midges in their thousands at Venus Pools. The Mallard ducklings had great fun catching them. It was also good to see a Little Ringed Plover on one of the scrapes together with Oystercatchers.