Southern Hawker Aeshna cyanea dragonfly nymph
Some more photos from the aquarium set up in October, this time of a Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) dragonfly nymph.
Smooth newt tadpole Lissotriton vulgaris
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.
DetailsHaliplus water beetle larva and phantom midge larva
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
DetailsEgg laying and mating ruddy darters
A couple of photos from one of dragonfly chasing lunch breaks. As well as the migrant hawkers, there is an abundance of ruddy darters at Wat Tyler CP. I’ve seen many tandem egg laying pairs, but they move pretty fast as the male whips the female down to lay an egg. I took a few…
DetailsAdder Vipera berus photos
I managed some nice photos of a young adder this morning. It posed well, didn’t move, but as always with these snakes something wasn’t great, the light. It was a sunny morning but this snake was in the shade and I ahd to resort to flash. My flashgun batteries were dead so I had to…
DetailsMigrant hawker Aeshna mixta in flight
After all the excitement of the rare southern migrant hawkers, it seem that only the migrant hawkers (Aeshna mixta) are still on the wing. I had a look at West Canvey Marshes on Sunday and there has been no sign this week at Wat Tyler CP. The week before last I came across a migrant…
DetailsHyphydrus ovatus and lesser diving beetle Acilius sulcatus female
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.…
DetailsSouthern migrant hawker and migrant hawker Aeshna affinis and A. mixta
Last Friday I had a go at photographing a southern migrant hawker (Aeshna affinis) that was flying around an gap between some reeds and some hawthorn. This meant I could get away with using my 100mm macro. Therefore this images are quite heavily cropped. I spotted a southern migrant hawker on Monday but didn’t get…
DetailsPond skater and backswimmer feeding on ruddy darter
Even the most beautiful of insects die, and this one died on the surface of the pond. Here a number of pond skaters gathered to feed on it from above, and at least one backswimmer fed on it from below.
DetailsMore Aeshna affnis with a small skipper butterfly and a slender leaved hare’s ear
At lunchtime I bumped into a couple of folks looking for the southern migrant hawker (one of who was Simon NL on Flickr, click his name to see his excellent pics). I got a couple of photos of the perched male today: Sadly with my Sigma 150-500mm rather than my 300mm prime, which I can’t…
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