Life in Miniature in the Garden

I decided last week to do a bit of sweep netting on the cut meadow and margins to see what lives at ground level. Before I started the sweep my eye was taken by this very small Pond Olive with spectacular eyes, a relative of the Mayfly. The Leaf Hopper is a miniature version of the Common Leafhopper

Southend Before the Storm

I took a walk along the front at Southend before giving a talk at Hadleigh Camera Club - always a difficult location to photograph with the mile-long pier but some late sunshine and impressive skies prior to a very violent rainstorm later helped the compositions. I couldn't resist the new versus old toilets or the rather starling moulting from fluffy juvenile to resplendent spotted winter adult.

Cambridge Riverside Walk - Topics

 We had 5 topics for our camera club walk along the Rive Cam on Sunday 1 Looking Down , 2 Movement, 3 British summer, 4 Reflections and 5 Contrast. Here are a couple of images for each of these categories.

Last of the Summer ......

My gardening efforts were interrupted yesterday morning by the noise of a flock of around 30 swallows flying around and landing on the television aerials and trees nearby. Down tools and up camera for a session with these wonderful birds presumably having their last feeds before undertaking the flight to Africa. It is more than 10 years since we had a nesting pair in our garage (image 3, 2007) - unfortunately we had to evict them when we needed to convert the garage to a bedroom as our family size increased. The last image shows one of the youngsters taking a nap - it is most likely it is a descendent of our swallow family.

Green Therapy along the River

I have the reputation for finding bright greens in images very distracting so wondered whether images with green as the only colour would work. Images from a walk along the river in Cambridge on the hottest day (so far!) of 2023. With the Chestnuts already turning to autumn hues it certainly simplified the scenes. Last two images playing with different colours.