Flies from Lakenheath

Great insect photography as always at Lakenheath. Here 15 Diptera species starting with Robber Flies, then Soldier Flies and Hoverflies ending with a mix of other species.

Orchid Time

As expected the orchids are out much earlier than say 10 years ago despite the present cooler weather - the Common Spotted Orchids and Man Orchids are mostly fully out and Pyramidal are coming out. As usual I was looking for insect pollinators but only found this Flower Spider!. The last two pairs of images are experiments with the new tools in Lightroom for Lens Blur - very impressive and going to give some headaches deciding what is acceptable for Natural History Distinctions (other images the backgrounds are as taken!).

Exciting Day at Rutland

A day of drama at Rutland Eggleton Nature Reserve with the RPS Nature Group both in the weather - thunder and lightning included - and the target birds - Hobby, Osprey and Cuckoo. Not quality photos by a long way but may give an idea of the action in sunny and cloudy skies (we failed to catch an Osprey with background lightnings flashes in a photo!). At the end, Reed and Sedge Warblers, Wren and Reed Buntings that tantalised us with brief visible moments in the reeds) 

Paxton Pits May Butterfly and Dragonfly Survey

Although warm and sunny there were worryingly few butterflies around though the Dragonflies made up for them with good sightings of Norfolk Hawkers and a very good year for Banded Demoiselle numbers. A lot of time was spent early on refreshing our ID skills for Variable (narrow or exclamation mark top thorax stripe, spur mark with stem, short amount of blue on S9 and 'bat' mark on tail segment), Azure (wider top stripe on thorax, but less than Common, Spur mark no stem, large amount of blue on S9 and spur-type mark on tip of abdomen) and Common (very blue thorax, wine glass mark, lots of blue on abdomen etc). Other dragonflies photographs are Blue-tailed Damselfly and Four-spot and Scarce Chasers. The highlights of the very few Butterflies were a Small Copper and a Grizzled skipper - the latter in a new area so hopefully they are spreading. I couldn't resist two other subjects that caught my lens - a Sallow Kitten moth caterpillar and some Sawfly larvae.

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)