Back In July, on the same day as I took the photos in the last post, I photographed this pyramidal orchid in Wat Tyler Country Park. I got some close ups. And tried a top down shot. On the reed bed walk was this sedge warbler. In the trees opposite this pair of crows were…
Back in July I was in one of the reed bed bird hides looking for the nest I had been told about. There were at least 2, perhaps 3 pairs of adults taking food to their young. After watching the adults and moving up to the upper floor and looking down I spotted the nest.…
Some more from the pond photography session. I found for the first time the larva of a giant horsefly (Tabanus sp.). It had a weird habit of retracting its head!
I’ve been catching up with some editing including some pond creatures and I came across probably my best diving beetle images. I photographed 2 species that day, the black belly diving beetle Dytiscus semisulcatus. And the wasp diving beetle Dytiscus curcumflexus, named after the striped underside.
Yesterday in the poor weather there was little about in Wat Tyler CP apart from a couple of crows. So I camped out at the bird feeders and got probably my best shots of goldfinches (though that says more about the low quality of the photos I’ve taken before). I had to shoot at ISO800…
Last week I came across a couple of crows in the morning sun. One of the resident crows displays some leucism with some with some white feathers mainly on the wings.
Here are a few shots of a pond skater a took a few weeks back. These true bugs or heteropterans stand on the surface tension of the water and ‘skate’ across it to catch insects that become trapped in the water. These were all taken using my photographic aquarium, which was full to the brim,…
Some more photos from that day back in June when I got the marbled white butterfly. I got another butterfly species, a large small skipper. There was plenty of goats rue in flower. I spotted this wood mouse. And a male scarce emerald damselfly.
Until this year one species of butterfly that had eluded any good shots was the marbled white. This year I came across one on a knapweed flower in Wat Tyler Country Park. I managed to photograph it as it gripped onto the flower in a breeze. I got various angles between the gusts of wind.
A quick photo from Pitsea landfill site, one of my favs from the evening there: