Toft Mini Invertebrates

It is time to cut the mini meadow in my garden but I couldn't do this without a session with the sweep net to see what is living in the grass. This is about a third of the species I managed to identify - many more are just too small. 

Evening Visit to Cambridge

A group from the Cambridge CC met up for a stroll round the city last night and I took along the Full-spectrum converted camera for a change of view. The resolution of the camera is not great but I do like the muted colours and soft feel to the images . Interesting to see a large number of people sketching along King's Parade - I believe this is an open monthly event. 

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.