One of the most common finds in garden ponds this time of year is the Pond olive mayfly nymph Cloen dipterum. Mayflies usual conjure up thoughts of adults that mate and die after a day or two, and to those more familiar aquatic invertebrates of the larvae that live the the relatively oxygen rich flowing…
I had another attempt at the ‘meet the neighbours’ style wildlife photography, which involves photographing your subject on a completely white background. I tried it first on a Rhantus Diving beetle in one of my aquariums. I also tried it with a water stick insect. Then a few close ups with a normal background
A few recent shot of the pond surface dwelling Water measurer Hydrometra stagnorum. These were taken with my photographic aquarium.
A few shots of a darter dragonfly nymph (Sympetrum sp.) I took back in July with my photographic aquarium set up:
A couple from back in April. Thus smooth newt tadpole was fully developed so must have overwintered as a tadpole. There were also a number of small backswimmer (Notonecta) nymphs.
Yesterday I had a aquarium photography session. A 4mm long emperor dragonfly nymph turned up with this rather nice striped colouration. I have only seen this colouration once before, again it was an emperor, but that one was over a cm if memory serves. The one yesterday let me get one good side on shot.…
Some more photos from the aquarium set up in October, this time of a Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) dragonfly nymph.
A few shots from last October, of a a nearly full grown smooth newt tadpole. I placed some leaves in the aquarium and let it move around, and got some pleasing shots.
A couple of Pond creature photos, taken with my aquarium set up a while back. Both of these are under 1cm long and required the use of extension tubes for grater magnification. First up this Haliplus water beetle larva. And a couple of phantom midge larvae close ups
Some photos using my aquarium set up. One of the few species of the small dytiscid (diving) beetles you can identify without a microscope is Hyphydrus ovatus Unfortunately, like all small dytiscids, they don’t sit and pose for long, and it took my quite a while to get these photos of this 5mm long beetle.…