Last month I had an early morning walk around Wat Tyler CP. It was a typical chilly autumn morning, with the rising sun was warming things up slowly. I was hoping for some dewy webs, but was not in luck.
I did however find this Garden Spider sitting on a leaf. It was hard to get the depth of field I wanted on the spider and the leaf it was on, while making sure the leaf behind was out of focus, so I switched to Focus-Bracketing mode on my camera and stacked the images later on my PC. I was quite pleased with the result.
Looking for more spiders, I came across this Shrill Carder Bee.
This species is pretty rare, with a now very restricted range around the Thames Estuary and Pembrokeshire in the UK. They thankfully are not too rare in Wat Tyler and surrounding areas, but due to their habit of buzzing quickly from flower to flower and the flowers tending to be those with long tubular florets (requiring them to bury their heads right into them), makes it very hard to get a clear sharp shot of one to put it mildly! Sadly this was at a slightly awkward angle, but sat still for the above stacked image and this one from above.
I also came across this Wasp Spider. I have lots of images from this summer/autumn all from the same area as this individual, which Ill share at some point. FOr now here is an 8 image stack, allowing from the abdomen to the web to be in focus.
Later in the day I found this Field Grasshopper on the path and tried a couple of stacked images of it, the photo at the start of this article and the below:
I also got this standard non stacked image showing the whole body, to prove I sometimes turn off the bracketing mode!
