My Wildlife Garden in May

I photograph and post a lot of insect images - here are the habitats in my garden that support the amazing variety of species recorded this year. The most spectacular area at the moment is the 'Hedgerow garden', backed by a very tall hedge, which is a mass of Red Campion and Oxeye Daisies at the moment. The most productive for species is the 'Meadow' - an area left as long grass and supporting many meadow flowers - Cranesbill, Daisies, Vetches, Scabious and Yellow Rattle (not done quite so well this year). Obviously the pond is an essential habitat while much of the rest of the garden are kept as fairly controlled borders that are a mix of perenial plants - originally purchased but now many self seeded or grown from collected seeds, and wild flowers (small yellow foxgloves, campion, buttercups, linaria, scabious etc)

 

Paxton 'Dragons', 'Damsels' and 'Scorpions'

 Although overcast and fairly chilly Paxton Pits was alive with Damselflies (Common, Variable and Blue-tailed plus Banded Demoiselles) and Scorpion Flies plus the occasional Dragonfly (Four-spotted Chaser). I decided to use just the 300 mm lens (with 1.4 converter) as I need to practise finding things in the view finder etc.

Garden Spiders etc

 Lots of Spiders in the garden yesterday including Xysticus cristatus, Jumping spider Salticus scenicus, Cucumber spider, Labyrinth Spider and nursery Spider. Also photographed Dark Bush Cricket, Wasp Beetle and Spectacle Moth

Cadwell Park Historic Racing Car Event

On Sunday, I visited Cadwell Park with Phil for the Historic Racing Cars event. Brought back many memories of going to Brands hatch in the 1950s opnwards as a child. The weather was perfect for walking round the wooded and very attractive site though a bit bright and contrasty for photographing shiny cars! or for really slow panning. I varied the panning rate and found that the very small and very fast SuperKarts gave a real challenge (1/400th). For the comparatively slow Formula Ford cars it was around 1/320th and for the Sports Cars etc right down to 1/125th. Obviously head-on shots required 1/2000th and above

Burgh on Bain Lincs Insects

We spent the weekend in a very comfortable AirBNB at Burgh on Bain in Lincolnshire which had large areas of wet meadows that I explored in the early morning. Here a few dew-covered creatures