30th August Toft Garden

Here are some of the species I was able to identify while starting to cut my  'meadow' area  - the root areas are particularly full of insects and spiders. There are many many more still to record  though not sure how many will be large enough to photograph and ID. some extras at the end from the Tansy etc

28th August Paxton Macrophotography

Yesterday was our second Macrophotography Day at Paxton on a very warm humid day. Having talked about the various techniques that could be used in the field (depending on camera models, type of image wanted visually and the intended use of the image), we spent the rest of the day on the reserve finding some models for our techniques.

 Image 1 (Green bottle) is a stack of Raw images using in-camera Bracketing and stacking in Zerene stacker.

 Images 2, 3, 4, and 5 are in-camera stacks producing a jpg image (Olympus OM-D EM5iii). 

Images 6-10 are single shots with a wide depth of field (1/250 sec F14) 

 Images 11-14 are set on Procapture (1/2000th f8) hoping to capture flight!! I was particularly please with the Spiked Shieldbug as I had never recorded how the wings unfold in Hemiptera before.

Paxton Pits Dragons etc

Fair number of  Migrant Hawkers, Ruddy  and Common Darters, and Willow Emeralds  at Paxton yesterday. This Scorpion Fly obligingly stayed for some time as a photographic model feeding on Ant Damsel Fly. Not sure if the short-winged moth is a common variant of the Turnip Moth or an incomplete emergence. Still lots of Wasp Spiders. I also spent a bit of time trying to get flight shots of the Bee Mimic fly (Eristalis intricaria)

 

Rainy Cambridge

Cambridge was the answer to a recent query 'in which City centre in England can you see cows grazing?' Add to this hay bales and it is a good description of Cambridge at the moment. Saturday was very wet and I felt the need for a bit of umbrella therapy. Although a lot less busy than a sunny day punting was continuing even if it meant looking like ghosts in their plastic wraps. It was Cambridge's Out of the Ordinary Festival which should have meant the streets etc were full of performers. Many were moved inside but this quartet continued around the City to the obvious amusement of shoppers.

New and Returning Garden Species

On my daily round in the garden, it is always exciting to find species that are unusual and are appearing for a second or subsequent season such as the Juniper Shieldbug, or are new to my records such as the Phytocoris varipes, not recorded in Toft before but seen last week at Paxton, where it was also on Ragwort. These images were taken as the skies cleared after a very wet day so lots of resting wet bees!