A photographic diary featuring my latest images
Friday 25th June 2010
My garden
Delighted to find this Broad Bodied Chaser frequenting the new pond.
Wednesday 23rd June 2010
My garden
I had my knee operation yesterday and managed to hobble down the garden today and sat quietly beneath the Cherry Tree wearing my Tilley hat. The young Blue Tits were feeding on the fat balls hanging from the tree and then to my suprise one of them landed on the brim of my hat. I was testing my new lens with the 2x convertor and this young Robin obliged.
I was very pleased to see that the Bullfinch is still visiting.
Monday 21st June 2010
Manor Farm Botley
My injured knee is still restricting me but I am to have it operated on tomorrow and so hopefully will be able to resume normal service shortly. I purchased a new lens today, the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L zoom lens and on my way home I stopped off at Manor Farm to give it a try. I encountered several Sparrows near the farm pond and also a Small Skipper butterfly. Although the zoom lens is not designed for close up work, in the absence of my macro lens I gave it a try on the butterfly and was pleased with the result.
Back in the garden in the early evening my wife encountered this Southern Hawker Dragonfly which had just emerged from its larval stage. Unfortunately instead of climbing onto a photogenic reed, it chose a piece of deck board complete with barcode!
Wednesday 16th June 2010
My garden
This dead Mayfly was on the surface of the new pond. It is said there are 51 species of Mayfly in Britain. There are four stages in their life, egg, nymph, dun and spinner(the photo shows a spinner). The eggs are laid in a pond or river and a Nymph emerges, the Nymph feeds on the bottom for typically a year before climbing out of the pond and emerging from its shell as a dun. The dun is winged and flies off to take cover in a tree before making the final transformation to a spinner. After this final change the insect flys off in search of a mate and then back to the water to lay its eggs. After the eggs are laid the insect falls exhausted on the surface of the water and dies. The Mayfly is the only insect to have two winged stages in its development.
Sunday 13th June 2010
My garden
The Stag Beetle is Britains largest insect and due to loss of habitat is now rare. This one is a female as she lacks the jaws possessed by the male. After finding a suitable mate, this beetle will lay her eggs and then die, the male will also die. Once the eggs hatch, the grubs will take three to five years before they change into adult beetles. The cycle starts again as the males fly off in search of a mate, the flying season ends in August and by winter all adult Stag beetles have died.
Wednesday 9th June 2010
My garden
Mum and Dad Blue Tit brought their offspring back to the Cherry Tree today, I think there are six chicks. There was also a family of Great Tits in the garden, and both were enjoying the fat balls which I have hung in the tree.
Thursday 3rd June 2010
My garden
Smooth Newts are really interesting to watch and I spent time at the side of the pond this morning and captured these images.
Turn away if you are a keen gardener, the following photographs depict what most of us know as the dreaded black and greenfly!
Rose Aphids (which come in pink or green).
Black Bean Aphids
Wednesday 2nd June 2010
My garden
The Blue Tits in the box fledged today and I missed it. In previous years the young have congregated in the Cherry Tree but this year they appear to have been taken away from the garden. As it was such a lovely day I thought they might fledge and I had been keeping my eyes open but I realised I had missed the event when my wife found a young Blue Tit in our conservatory.The bird was safetly returned to the garden.
The very new wildlife pond appears to be paying dividends and it was covered with copulating Damselflys today.
A pair of Azures.
A Large Red.
