I blogged recently about a male adder trying to court a female, well 4 days after he was first spotted trying, he was still courting away. Here he is sitting on top of the female. He felt the vibrations of someone else approaching and stuck his head up to look. The female was still not…
Yesterday we had a family visit to the craft fair at RHS Hyde Hall and I was not planning on taking many photos after taking 1600 shots the day before on Sheppey (blog post on that to follow!), but I always take my camera with me just in case. One of the craft tents was…
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to photograph a male adder. He wasn’t alone, as there was a female there trying to bask nearby and he was paying her lots of attention, crawling over her and smelling her with his tongue. Trying to get under her. And sometimes nudging her in the…
There has been a bit of a gap since my last blog, so a fair bit to catch up on, but I’ll start with my most recent project; frog tadpoles. Two years ago I dug a small pond in my garden with the hope that some amphibians would turn up, but I only saw one…
A couple of years ago I finally managed to get hold of a water spider (Argyroneta aquatica) and get some nice photos of this fascinating species They are the only fully aquatic spider species in the world. The live out a diving bell, which is a large bubble of air trapped in an underwater web.…
Back in June a colleague brought in an interesting orb weaver spider with distinctive ‘bumps’ on the abdomen. After some detective work and ultimately an ID from Peter Harvey, it was identified as a Gibbaranea gibbosa. Its not particularly rare, but a firs for me. Just goes to show new species can turn up anywhere,…
Here is part 2 of my 2016 review, carrying on from part 1. I had a wildlife trip up to Yorkshire for an early birthday present and one of my targets was a common hawker dragonfly. I had seen a probably common hawker in the Cairngorms back in 2014, but I’d never had a good…
As is tradition now, as 2016 is drawing to a close, I’ve written a review of the year. Its been a mixed year, where for reasons that will become apparent below, I’ve not been able to get as much with the camera as in previous years, but I’ve had few nice wildlife experiences, got a…
Back in February 2015, there was a fox that had been fed (not by me) coming to a car park regularly during the day. Once those feeding it stopped, it soon learned that people meant dogs not food and the fox ceased to be so tame. But before it did I had a few lunchbreaks…
Not been updating the blog much lately so I’ll try get back in the habit. For now here are some photos I took in a 5 minute period on the way to the shops in Romford, in a town park called Raphaels Park It was a bit wary, but came in close briefly and the…