Southern Hawker Flight

 About three weeks ago I shared images of a very confiding pair of Southern Hawkers visiting our pond to lay egs and we had another female yesterday that returned repeatedly through the day to lay in the moss at the edge of the pond. 

I  spent time trying to capture them in flight and pleased with sequences that showed a bit about how they manoeuvre keeping the head more-or-less horizontal. She came very close so lots of opportunities to capture the wonderful eyes.

With the two long egg-laying visits, hopefully we are in for a bumper year in a couple seasons time, when they emerge as in 2017 

Ann Miles Blog: Sixty Southern Hawkers and Still Counting.... (pin-sharp.blogspot.com)

Macro at Paxton

 Yesterday we had a Macro day at Paxton for Volunteers and were lucky with the weather - mainly bright and not too windy especially in the morning. Several wasp Spiders located - this one has a Dark Bush Cricket prey. Other favourites were the Vapourer moth caterpillar, the Green Leaf Hopper and the various stages of the Dock Bug. Large numbers of Migrant Hawkers on the wing and pleased to photograph for the first time a Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Evening Flying at Duxford

 Here a miscellany of shots from an Evening Flying show at Duxford which featured a pyrotechnics display by two motorised gliders. Some of the shots were taken by Phil on my camera as he didn't get his gear organised before leaving for work in the morning (used faster shutterspeed 1/640th for gliders) while I used a slow shutterspeed (up to 1.6secs) to accentuate the trails and shapes. The moon wasn't quite full but still impressive.

16th August Garden Cameos

Sometimes photos taken mainly for identification and record purposes turn out to be very attractive studies of light and colour - this Lasioglossum Bee just caught the sunlight in a shadier part of the garden. Good to have a new Dragonfly visitor this season as a Migrant Hawker dropped in and rested on a cane for a while (in-camera stacks). Otherwise Flower Spiders, Woundwort Shieldbugs and the plant bug Dicyphus epilobi were all present where expected on 'Flowers', Hedge Woundwort and Greater Willowherb as their names suggest!!

RPSB Sandy on the Hottest Day

We  visited RSPB Sandy on the hottest day so far of the year - my car registered 34 degrees on a hunt for Bee-wolf Wasps and other interesting insects. After a fairly long wait (fortunately in the shade) a Beewolf arrived carrying its honeybee prey but was unable to locate the exact position of burrow making many repeat visits so we had opportunities to photograph it over half an hour. The other bee-catching wasp, the Ornate Digger Wasp was found nectaring on Fennel along with several other attractive species including Cinnamon Bug, Ant Damsel Bug and Western Conifer Bug, species that are rapidly spreading north with global warming. There were dragonflies in the air so not surprised to photograph a Hobby hunting in the distance.