While in the New Forest by a river I spotted one of the large pond skater or water strider species on a river. So I tried out the DA*300mm, with extension tubes on for closer focus distance and attached the flash to increase the shutter speed in the poor light. These photos were the result.
Among the insect finds in my garden recently was this squash bug.
A nice recent find in my garden was this Corizus hyoscyami plant bug I intially thought it was a fire bug, but turned out to be this other lovely species.
Ive had a number of hawthorn shield bugs Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale in my garden recently. This posed for a few photos
Some more white background photos, this time of the aquatic predator, a water scorpion Nepa cinerea.
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…
The Lesser backswimmer Plea minutissima is often overlooked, being quite small (about 3mm long), resembling and often mistaken for a small nymph of the ‘greater’ backswimmer (Notonecta sp.). They are a real pain to photograph, rarely stopping long enough to find such a small creature in the frame, let a alone focus on them! I…
Just a quick post and photo. I’ll have to blog about these cracking little bugs one day, but for now here is a a pic of a lesser water boatman.
Had another go at the ‘Meet the Neighbours’ style photos i.e. with a white background. Got some I’m pretty happy with. Newt tadpoles Lesser water boatman. Colymbetes fucus Diving beetle.
Photographing more pond creatures today this lesser water boatman suffered from delusions of grandeur, sitting upside down at the surface like one of its larger relatives the greater water boatman . This algae eater is not going to kid anyone though, for as well as being smaller, it lacks that needle like mouth that the…