Lesser water boatman nymph
Back in June I found a nicely coloured lesser water boatman nymph. I had never seen one with such colouration before. So I took photos from a number of angles in my photographic aquarium.
Willow emerald damselfly at Strumpshaw Fen
Last weekend I had a trip up to Norfolk, which included a visit to Strumpshaw Fen. I had heard that willow emeralds (Lestes viridis) were present and went to have a look. As I crossed thr railway I ran into Dick who runs Rare bird alert and was the person who reported them the previous…
Water louse, bloodworm, Rhantus suturalis diving beetle and Limnephilus rhombicus caddisfly larva
Some more of the pond photos from January. Most of these have had some dust and dirt cloned out of them and a couple, notably the following photo, has had the background touched up. The first photos are of a water louse or slater. They are the aquatic relative of the woodlouse. They are often…
Damselfly nymph, backswimmer and lesser water boatman
Here are some pond creature photos I took way back in January using my photographic aquarium. First up a nice damselfly larva. Im not 100% sure on the species but it would be either common or azure blue, or a blue tailed damselfly. I also got a number of lesser water boatman photos. I got…
Privet Hawkmoth
Back in April a privet hawkmoth was brought in to work. This moth was pretty big! So I took lots of photos!
Common lizard, grasshopper and nursery web spider
The day before visiting Rainham we went to a few other sites in Essex. We started in Epping Forest where we found some common lizards. Along with some meadow grasshoppers. This one started stridulating.. There were loads of migrant hawker dragonflies hunting over the scrub and heath, but none posed for photos. We then moved…
Migrant Hawker in flight
While at Rainham Marshes we noticed a fair few male migrant hawkers patrolling territories. The light wasn’t great and neither was the angle from the boardwalks so we didn’t bother with them. But then we found a spot where we could get to their level with the sun behind us, only for the sun to…
Meadow grasshopper and rosels bush cricket
A few more from Hadleigh CP. Here is a meadow grasshoper head on. And a Rosel’s bush cricket.
Essex skipper, marbled white, common blue, gatekeeper and large white butterflies
Following on from my last post, at Hadleigh Country Park there were were also plenty of butterflies. This Essex skipper was a nice find. It looks like a small skipper but the underside of the antennae are black. There were also some marbled white butterflies about. This one was looking a little tatty I tried…
Marmalade hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus hovering in flight
A couple of weeks ago I headed to Hadleigh Country Park to look for wildlife. There were a number of hoverflies around so I tried to capture them hovering in flight. Though Im not 100% happy with them I had some success, certainly better than I had managed before. The key seemed to be using…