Tales of springtails, as autumn tails into winter....

The autumn colours have not been very evident locally this year. There certainly hasn't been the big show that we've been expecting when so many of our native trees are full of colour at,or around the same time.

I have managed a few shots though..

The first two photos are of the lakes at Colliers Green, close to where I live and were taken using the DSLR camera. These are directly from the camera apart from re-sizing...

The second two are local farmland,even closer to home and these were taken using the little point and shoot camera. Although these two look as though I have altered the colours/saturation etc.. they are actually as they left the camera too.

The frosts have stayed away so far, apart from the odd one or two and that has meant that a lot of the insects that would normally be long gone, are still around this year...

Whilst out walking for less than an hour a couple of days ago, I came across a number of 'Darter' dragonflies.

There are also still lots of the wonderfully named 'Dung-flies' still around. These are some of the first flies to appear each year and I would expect to start seeing them again as early as February...

This particular pair seem to be doing their best to assure there will be plenty around next year-well, the male does anyhow, the female seems more interested in eating!

We haven't had it all our own way regards the weather though, on one particular day for instance we had a hail storm...

The damper conditions has seen the numbers of those tiny critters called springtails, or more correctly 'Collembola' increase in numbers and I have captured a few pictures,although as the winter gets going, no doubt I'll be doing a lot more...

Here's one (pictured above) of a globular springtail taken on a flower seed head. There isn't an awful lot of fine detail on this one but they are very small to try and photograph without using flash and at the time I didn't have that option.

They come in many different colours and sizes...

This little orange coloured one was busy feeding and seemed unaware of the monster waiting to prey on it? Or is that all in my imagination perhaps?

For those of you interested in such matters, I think these are Monobella grassei, here's another view of one...

  

Lastly for now,I'm always saying that what I love so much about macro photography is that I can never be sure just what I will find on any given day. This next picture illustrates the point well...

A thrown away crisp packet revealed lots of water droplets on the underside, on closer inspection of a dark #blob' in one droplet, I found to my amazement that the blob was moving and it was actually a little brown mite.

Somehow the water tension seemed to be too strong and it was struggling to free itself from it's watery prison. I took this shot and they gave it a helping hand, well, even a mite deserves to live.

Until the next time then...