We look at an invertebrate commonly found in ponds and ditches, the water lice. We cover the 3 native UK species Asellus aquaticus, Proasellus meridianus, Asellus cavaticus and the non native Caecidotea communis, their life cycle, feeding, breeding and predators. We also read out our listeners 2021 wildlife highlights and discuss our own too.
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Its world wetlands day, so to celebrate the wonderful wildlife we find in these habitat I thought I’d share my best shots of freshwater life I took last year. All the underwater shots are in photographic aquarium. This a photo heavy post so I’ve kept the text to a minimum! My first freshwater photo of…
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…
The water louse is a common species found in many still and slow flowing aquatic habitats (including polluted ones), but it is not photographed very often, even when compared to other pond creatures. This is probably due to their habit of diving for cover or the corner of the photographic aquarium. Last winter I tried…
To celebrate the launch of the Freshwater Habitats Trust, I thought I would do a ‘best of’ my pond creature photos (some of which are being used by the FHT). These are a few of the nicer shots I’ve taken. First up, the first photo I was happy with of a four spotted chaser dragonfly…
Regular readers will know I photograph pond creatures on a fairly regular basis, but up until today I have never managed a shot I’m happy with of a Water louse Asellus aquaticus. I catch them on most pond dips, but because they are so common, combined with the fact they have the habit tucking themselves…
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…
Some more pond photos for last December. I got my best shots of a Haliplus sp. crawling water beetle. Including one swimming. I also got among my best at least of water lice.