We talk Craneflies with Pete Boardman, national organiser for the UK Cranefly Recording Scheme. We talk about what craneflies are, the confusion when using the name daddy long legs, the diversity and lifecycle of the craneflies, and why there are so many about at this time of year.
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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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A few SHots of a Tabanus Horsefly I managed to get close to. It look like the Dipteran answer to a certain Belgian detective.
Back in May, I got the only opportunity to photograph one of my favourite insects, a scorpiongly. Despite that scorpion like tail on the male, they can not sting. They are fantastic exotic looking insects, that feed on dead flies etc, often stealing them from spiders webs!
Here area few photos of a crab spider with its fly prey. It dropped the fly after sucking it dry and posed for a couple more shots.
Today I popped into Bedfords Park for a break and to have look for red eyed damselflies. But what caught my attention were the many emperor dragonflies spread along the lake margin, each patrolling their territories and scrapping with each other where they crossed paths. Occasionally one would hover, and this one did at a…
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!
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.
The rubbish weather so far this summer has stopped me getting much in the way of macro shots at all, let alone of the local speciality, the scarce emerald damselfly. However the improved weather last week did let me get the following.
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…