The water louse is a common species found in many still and slow flowing aquatic habitats (including polluted ones), but it is not photographed very often, even when compared to other pond creatures. This is probably due to their habit of diving for cover or the corner of the photographic aquarium. Last winter I tried…
Last week was my first attempt at some aquatic invertebrate photograph for a while, but I got some nice shots. This diving beetle larvae ended up posing well. Got a few close ups too
While in the Cairngorms in March, I kept going past lovely clear and clean rivers and streams, or I should say burns being that it was Scotland, and being me I couldn’t help but wonder what was in there. Lots it turned out! I’ve posted photos of the Pedicia hairy cranefly larva already and have…
As you may have guessed from recent posts I have had a few goes at shooting pond creatures with a white background. They great thing about these images is it is easy to play around with them and make things like a make a collage of them. Here is my first attempt:
A quick 1 photo post. A Screech or squeek beetle Hygrobia hermanni taken in my photographic aquarium
Today I’m off to the Launch of the Freshwater Habitats Trust, formerly known as Pond Conservation. I hope to Tweet this evening from the meeting and blog after the event, but to celebrate the launch, here are some phantom midge larva photos. I blogged some of the fascinating things about these brilliant creatures here:
I started today by heading straight to the spot where I saw the emperors emerging, but they were no longer there and just their exuvia were left. Hopefully they got away safely. At lunchtime I managed some shots of broad bodied chasers, a female hovering between egg laying. And a perched male. Yesterday I managed…
A couple of years ago a golf ball sized clump of white fuzz was fished out of some blanket weed on a pond dip. I had no idea what it was until I spotted the brown snorkel sticking out the water: it was the egg cocoon of the great silver water beetle! Unfortunately it would…
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…
Some photos taken using my photographic aquarium of a pirate spider Piraticus sp. This spider can be found around and sometimes on the surface of ponds. This one was flashing its fangs while on the water. This species should not be confused with the much larger raft spiders. This is another species to blog in…