A couple of weekends ago I was kindly allowed to tag along on Colchester Natural History Groups outing to RSPB Old Hall Marshes. I went along with Pam and Peter, two of the best aquatic ecologists in Essex and we surveyed the borrowdyke near the sea wall. One of the things we found were my…
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,…
Its been a while since I’ve posted so here are some insect macros taken last week. May is my favourite season for insect macros. Here a couple of the iridescent green coloured nettle weevils, often found on nettles unsurprisingly. And a nursery web spider.
This year I decided that I needed to get some good shots of raft spiders, the largest spider species found in the UK. Unfortunately living in Essex there are no sites nearby, the closest good site I’m aware of being Thursley Common in Surrey, where the Bog Raft Spider Dolomedes fimbriatus can be found. A…
Back in June I had visit to RSPB Strumpshaw Fen in Norfolk, one of my favourite reserves. I decided to do an anti clockwise loop and started in the area near the ‘Doctors Garden.’ The sun decided to disappear behind the cloud as I arrived around lunchtime, so I wasn’t holding up much hope of…
Regular readers will know that I often photograph pond creatures, both in situ in the wild (as in the above photo of a fen raft spider) and also using my photographic mini aquarium set up. I am also now running a workshop to show people how to photograph these interesting creatures, details on this and…
Here a few photos taken with my ‘surface dweller’ pond creature set up of a Pirate spider female with egg case or cocoon You an learn how to take photographs like these at the pond creatures photography workshop, more details here
Last Saturday I headed down to the New Forest to finally meet up with Naomi Ewald from FHT to look at some ponds with species that required her Schedule 5 license. I say finally because our previous attempts to meet had been thwarted by everything from flooding and thunderstorms to non functioning alarms, but this…
Here area few photos of a crab spider with its fly prey. It dropped the fly after sucking it dry and posed for a couple more shots.