To celebrate World Wetlands Day, here is an episode on a seriously underrated pond (and lake!) creature, the Phantom Midge Chaoborus sp. a transparent fly larva, the UK’s fastest striking predator and the only insect that is truly planktonic
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In this episode we talk flies with Dr Erica McAlister, Senior Curator of Diptera (true flies) at the Natural History Museum in London. She is also president of the Amateur Entomologists’ Society, and author of the The Secret Life of Flies and her new book The Inside Out of Flies.Erica answers listener questions on flies and tells…
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The nettle beds at Strumpshaw Fen where especially fruitful. This cardinal beetle, the red headed species Pyrochroa serraticornis, posed on the nettles for a bit, though the wind made shots a bit more tricky! The mosquitoes were eating us alive, but i did get a nice shot of one!
Another creature I photographed in my macro session was this Rhingia campestris hoverfly. It has the long ‘nose’ due to its extra long mouthpart which can reach down into flowers to get nector other hoverflies can’t reach. I need to find or think of a common name for this beast to tell the children I…
Back in June, I came across this Giant Horsefly (Tabanus sp.) They lay their eggs on pond margins where their larvae live. I photographed a larva last year. I got a head on shot too. They thankfully (for us) tend to leave humans alone and tend bite horses and cows.
Some more pond photos. First up my best photo yet of a Pond olive mayfly nymph. This one appears to have lost half of its middle tail filament. I also photographed some chironomid midge larvae. this group is best known for its red coloured species, known as bloodworms. This species however was green and hide…
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…
Ive been catching up on some editing, especially on my pond photos. I got my best shots of a soldierfly larva, possibly Stratiomys sp. Not the prettiest of animals! Also in the same batch were these of the brackish water prawns.