World Pinhole Day

 Today is World Pinhole Day - everyone who owns or has made a pinhole camera is asked to take an image today. A gallery of all the images will be displayed on the World Pinhole website later. I decided to try a better and more centrally placed hole. Very pleased with the results - much better than previous one - our bungalow and views from Toft Village Green.

Frosty Morning Walk

We have had a series of frosty mornings in Cambridgeshire. A few images from an early morning walk yesterday catching the dawn light on the vegetation.

Local Birds

Some of the birds from my morning walk to Harwick Wood including very confiding Wrens and Willow Warbler. Very surprised to see a fully fledged Robin youngster when the Blackcap and Nuthatch are only just beginning their breeding. Red Kite and Linnet just for the colours!!

Insects in flight

Now we have lots of insects in the garden, I am returning to last year's project of getting insects in flight. The female Hairy Footed Flower Bee in the first image is in a perfect position with diffuse background (green bin!!) but has not extended its tongue forwards for the characteristic pose of this species distinguishing it often from the Early Bumblebee in the second image. Various shutterspeeds from 1000th upwards - the Beefly in the penultimate image was a 6,400th of a second and still not completely stopped the wing movement. The final image used flash to freeze the motion.

Flowers Using Wide-angle and Long Lenses

Because of the cold conditions last month and early this month followed by warm temperatures, all the spring species are flowering together giving wonderful displays in Cambridgeshire's woodlands - here at Hardwick Wood. I took images with both a long lens (140-560mm) and a wide angle (23mm). Generally I prefer the wide angle shots giving some environment information. The Oxlips are particularly fine this year. For many years it was thought that the oxlip was cowslip/primrose hybrid. In 1842' the botanist Henry Doubleday did some breeding tests, later confirmed by Charles Darwin, that showed it is a separate species.  

Paxton Pits RPS Field Trip

 On Saturday, we had our second Field trip of 2021 for the RPS Nature Group, a general natural history day at Paxton Pits. We saw a wide variety of birds and insects on a warm very bright sunny day. It was not the best conditions to get photos but certainly made the whole day very enjoyable. The Willow Warblers were singing very prominently from many perches along with Blackcaps. The bees are mining bees Andrena nitida and Andrena nigroaenea with a Blood bee (Sphecodes) that is a parasite of bees laying its egg in their brood chambers