Last weekend I finally made it up to Norsey Wood to start my wood ant project. The bluebells have just started to flower, but to me they come second to my favourite forest flower, the wood anemone. I used my 300mm and teleconvertor for this shot, which helped get the nice clean background. It was…
After good feedback on some stacked images, over the last few months I have been trying to get close ups of various pond creatures using a technique known as stacking. For those that don’t know this involves taking a number of images focused at different focus distances, the in focus parts of each image are…
Its that time of year to look back and reflect on what I’ve seen and photographed. No trips abroad this year, and I largely visited places I have been many times before, but I certainly found some new things and improved my shots of others. The year started, as it often does with me, inside…
The water vole is a species that has evaded me for quite a while. I have had a few sightings over the years, but no good photo opportunities. So when a friend offered to show me the a water vole platform on a small stream local to me, I didn’t hesitate. While there a small water…
Yesterday I had an afternoon to myself, so headed down to Roding Valley Recreation ground where there has been a red-necked grebe staying for a week or so. It would be a new bird species for me and there would be a chance of a decent photo based on reports from other birders/photographers. I headed…
Had a quick family visit to Rainham Marshes this morning and it was an enjoyable couple of hours. I didn’t have the time to put my usual effort in, but had some good sightings that are worth posting about. I started off saying hello to Howard who was set up on the sea wall and…
I recently had the opportunity to photograph an adult Great crested newt (under license) properly for the fist time using my photo aquarium and natural light. I have seen the photo on survey many times, but this was the first time I had found one in the day time and when I had my set…
On Monday I decided to have a day out with the family, and we ended up heading to RHS Hyde Hall. I have only visited a few time before, and never on a sunny day in summer. On my previous visits I had suspected the ‘new’ lake there would be good for dragonflies, and I…
As you may have gathered from my last post I have traded in most my Pentax gear and switched to Olympus, giving me superior effective focal length and much better auto focus. I had a trip to Rainham Marshes today with my 1 year old in the buggy, so no serious waiting around, but still…
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…