Today at Wat Tyler there were dragonflies abound at the one pond I managed to visit in my lunch break. The first I noticed was this male broad bodied chaser On the water surface a number of azure damselflies in tandem were egg laying in the weed that was at the surface. Soon after I…
More from last year. Mating craneflies These black ants were under a piece of carpet. And ox eye daisy. And I came across this ‘cuckoo spit’ which is actually foam produced by a the nymph of a froghopper, which it hides under.
Some from last year: Stretch spider Tetragantha extensa It was eating a midge.
Last year I was photographing a cooperative blue tailed damselfly at Wat Tyler Country Park
The weekend before last I headed up to one of my favourite parts of my local patch, Bedfords Park. I didn’t take many photos but I did get my first speckled wood of the year. This was before all the recent rain and the bluebells were looking a bit flat. I did take a couple…
A few weeks ago I found an alderfly larva in the bottom mud of a pond. They tend to be found in and on the pond bottom. They are quite distinctive with their many gill filaments on the abdomen and the pair of pincers at the front. They can sometimes be found crawling through weed…
When you take up wildlife photography there are certain bird species you want to photograph. Hoopoes are on most people’s lists, if hard to get in the UK. Bitterns are another and one, I’ve only photographed twice and not particularly well. Another is the bearded tit or reedling. I had seen them at Rainham before…
The last from the productive pond dip photography session. I got my best over of a few more species: Cloen dipterum Mayfly nymph. Agraylea multipunctata Micro caddisfly larva And wandering pond snail.
Carrying on from my last post, the pond photography session gave me my best ever hawker dragonfly nymph. I got it from various angles, including these two in which you can really see that mask or labium they use to catch prey, under slung below the head. I also got a top down shot. I…
Here are some photos from a morning walk around Wat Tyler Country park. The highlight was a greenfinch eating a sycamore seed. The winter thrushes were as uncooperative as usual but I managed a couple of grab shots . Fieldfare Redwing