Ive posted photos the larva of a lesser water beetle and the great silver water beetle recently, but the most ferocious of them all are the larvae of the great diving beetle species or Dytiscus larvae. If you mange to get one of these in your pond dipping tray, you will soon end up with…
Following form my last post, here are the photos from that feeding great silver water beetle. You can really see those asymmetrical mandibles in this close up. Which they use to eat the snail. It would occasionally uncurl to get some air from the surface. Before recurling around its wandering pond snail prey. In this…
Here is a video I made of a great silver water beetle larva (Hydrophilus piceus) feeding on a wandering pond snail (Radix labiata). It has an interesting method of feeding where, after grabbing the snail in its unsymmetrical mouthparts, it then curls its body around it to get a better hold as is devours it!…
Yesterday morning, as with most days this week, there were plenty of fieldfares around. They were feeding on the hawthorn berries. At lunchtime I set up my camera near the RSPB feeders and got my best great tit shots yet. I also got some nice blue tit shots. I photographed the ‘beaky’ blue tit again.…
Yesterday in the poor weather there was little about in Wat Tyler CP apart from a couple of crows. So I camped out at the bird feeders and got probably my best shots of goldfinches (though that says more about the low quality of the photos I’ve taken before). I had to shoot at ISO800…