RPS Nature Group Outing to Cribb's Meadow

We spent yesterday morning photographing Green-winged Orchids, Cowslips, Water Avens and Adder's Tongue at a new reserve for me. The weather varied from bright sunshine to heavy cloud but did give a great variety of lighting opportunities in addition to the differences in the Orchids coloration and morphology.

Garden Project 15 Maintaining Balance

Keeping a good balance between cultivated and wild flowers continues to occupy a lot of my gardening hours but is certainly rewarding in terms of biodiversity of plants and their dependent insects etc. The front 'lawn' is a meadow of Buttercups with Vetches and Yellow Rattle coming up ready to flower next. Red Campion, always a favourite, has taken up residence in most of the flower beds along with Cow Parsley, Comfrey and Anchusa, which all need culling fairly frequently. A new venture this year is leaving an area of the back lawn long planted up with Bulbs - Grape hyacinths, Tulip and various Alliums plus I am planting various annuals into the long grass such a Cosmos, Nigella, Annual Chrysanthemums, Marigolds etc. I still maintain a small vegetable and soft fruit area so plenty of weeding there!!

Stars of Today's Paxton Surveys

I started today with an early morning Breeding Birds Survey at Paxton and it was wonderful to hear so many Garden Warblers, newly returned to the UK and singing their hearts out. The Dunnocks were also very vocal. When we had completed our part of the route, I spent 3 hours surveying an area for insects etc as I have to miss the official survey morning on Tuesday. Here photographs taken with a telephoto lens including spiders, bees, moths, butterflies and damselflies. Mainly I was working on much smaller subjects using a close macro (to follow).

Bees, Wasps and Ants, Crete

Bees, wasps and ants do particularly well in hot dry climates so was not surprised to find a good variety of species, including this tiny Jewel, A Ruby-tailed Wasp. The Paper Wasp was a particularly pleasing find on a grass stem at the top of a sandy beach.

Garden Safari May 4th

Lots of bees and wasps in the garden including a new one for the list, the parasitic species Nomada ferruginatus. I always love to see the first stages of the Speckled Bush Cricket.