RSPB Otmoor (1)

 My first visit to Otmoor (Oxfordshire) and was rewarded with some great sightings - Common Crane, Bittern, Heron, Red Kite with Prey in Talons, Heron and Spiked Shieldbug with its impaled caterpillar prey.   There were also some better photographic opportunities of small birds -  next Blog. The Grass Snake was nearer Aylesbury on a stopover.

Paxton Pits

The Dragonflies are still very active at Paxton with lots of Common and Ruddy Darters, Willow Emeralds and Southern Hawkers in the air and resting up. Images with FS Panasonic G2 and 60mm Olympus macro to test quality. These have been through PureRaw3 for noise removal but no changes to colours etc. 

Early Morning Light

Yesterday morning was a very clear sunrise giving bright direct light to the landscape so more experiments with the Full Spectrum camera either with a 950nm filter as images 1,3,4 and 8 or using without. With the direct lighting early in the walk, the results were striking when converted to monochrome but generally the complete spectrum images gives a lot more scope when converting to monochrome or using as colour images.

Autumn in the Garden

The Ivy is now in full flower and full of Ivy bees - first recorded in UK in 2001 and in Toft in 2017. Also full-grown Dark Bush-Crickets enjoying the berries, large number of Spiders and Carder Bees in the Michaelmas Daisies show autumn is really here now.

Cambridgeshire Ancient Woodland

During the Neolithlic and Bronze ages, the first farmers cleared areas in  West Cambridgeshire that had been covered in prehistoric forest since the last ice age. This continued through to the Anglo-Saxon times. However the heavy boulder clay soil of this area was too difficult to farm and so some areas of the forest were left  - these include my local ancient woodland, Hardwick Wood. The Domesday Book shows that the pattern of woodland fragments in 1086 looked very similar to the pattern of woods that still exist today as ancient woodlands. 

When I walk deeper into Hardwick Wood I feel the pressures and worries of our times evaporate. I hope these IR pictures something of that Ancient Woodland mystery.