Dear Andrew Rosindell I am writing to you to express my concerns over government plans to cull badgers. The current plans to cull badgers seem to be scientifically unjustified, as trails (the Krebs trail for example) have shown their effectiveness for bTB control seems to be minimal and in some cases make the problem worse.…
Back in May I visited Kefalonia, the greek island. When I arrived at my hotel there were a number of alpine swifts flying around, which a great sight (and sound). I went for a walk and found a patch of longer grass and wildflowers, where there were some butterflies: Eastern dappled white Meadow brown And…
A couple from back in April. Thus smooth newt tadpole was fully developed so must have overwintered as a tadpole.
There were also a number of small backswimmer (Notonecta) nymphs.
A few photos form back in March taken at Kent Wildlife Trust’s Oare Marshes Nature reserve. The reserve is a fantastic place to see birds, but they are rarely close enough to get a decent shot, even with a 500mm lens, as it is very busy and a lot of the folk there have dogs…
A few more pond creature aquarium photography shots.
First up this small (1cm) Crawling water beetle (Hydrophilidae) larva.
The nymph of a backswimmer.
A pond skater nymph
And a close up of a scarce emerald damselfly (Lestes dryas) nymph.
Along with the semi-aquatic true bugs the pond skaters, Water crickets and water measurers, there is another type: the shore bugs. These are the least aquatic of the semi aquatic bugs, often found in the marginal vegetation around water bodies. I caught this one in a reedy pond and photographed in my photographic aquarium It…
Some more photos from the London Wetland Centre, this time of the dragonflies. There were loads of migrant hawkers about.
Also I photographed this common darter.
Last weekend I popped into the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. There were lots of captive waterfowl to see as ever, but also lots of moorhens running in and around the enclosures. One was on the wall of the eider enclosure Before jumping down. There were plenty feeding around on the grass and I got…
Back in March I popped into Seahouses on the way back from Scotland, to photograph the resident eiders there and got my best shots yet of this species.
A male posed nicely in the harbour.
And a group came close outside the harbour wall.
The female posed nicely too.
Yesterday I had a aquarium photography session. A 4mm long emperor dragonfly nymph turned up with this rather nice striped colouration. I have only seen this colouration once before, again it was an emperor, but that one was over a cm if memory serves. The one yesterday let me get one good side on shot.…
