No more duck walks, how about a cow instead?

Monday 13th March 2017 and I wake to be greeted by a spring day, with warm sunshine. Time for a walk with the macro. Shall I go walking on sunshine, or perhaps, a walk on the wild side? I could do the walk of life if I knew what life was all about. Should I walk like a man, or walk like an Egyptian? Walk this way, or walk the line? Maybe I'll just go walkin' the dog, or should I walk the dinosaur? I'll try to avoid walking on broken glass, because that's not what these boots were made for...

The first sighting of an insect, was this tiny moth. It was sitting on a fence-post sunning itself. I am afraid that I have no idea of species, actually, I am not even afraid...I just have no idea. Then came this lovely small tortoiseshell butterfly. Once again, it was soaking up the warm sunshine and was favouring any bare patch of clay soil...

My next 'spot' was something of a surprise...

Another fence-post find; this time a woundwort shieldbug. I rarely see these away from their food plant and certainly this will be the earliest in the year I have found any. 

Then...another butterfly: this time a peacock...

Just in case you are phobic, here's a clue to what is coming next in this little blog update...

Got it? How about this second clue...

Oh calm yourself! It's only a little female crab spider, she won't harm you. Tell ya what, let's punctuate this update with a comma shall we...

Yes, this comma was the third butterfly species that I was able to photograph on this particular walk. I actually saw brimstone and red admiral as well. Meanwhile, on another fence-post I came across this teeny blue weevil...

And that was just about all I saw on this particular morning; aside from these bonking frogs, or are they toads perhaps?

A short diversion before Spring hits the South East...

I sort of hinted in my last update that I might possibly base the next around moss and lichen.
I suppose I used these as a substitute for invertebrates, of which there were few around at the time. However, we have been promised the weather is about to become..." Ice creams and lollipops" very soon.
If this prophecy becomes reality, I expect an explosion in insects and bugs and so, I guess before that happens, now is a good time to add the pictures I already have collected.....

CLICK ANY PHOTO FOR A LARGE VIEW ON BLACK

I can't claim to know anywhere near enough to be able to identify these mosses and lichen with any amount of certainty, they are appealing in their diversity and structure though and I hope make for interesting images...

These shots are a mixture of flash and natural light images and I have to admit, I can not remember which are which but you'll probably be able to tell by the light.

Having said I don't recall...I do remember that the three photos above were taken using flash.

Most of the photos above were taken on the same day,although different locations. On another day,when it had been raining I tried to add some shots of the droplets caught on the mosses...

And so there we are...a little diversion courtesy of the mosses that I found over a couple of days recently. Not a lot to add because, there's not a lot I know...

Until the next time then...

(Please check out my new FOR SALE PAGE of the blog and be sure to check back for updates)

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...

"I've got a pocketful of bees".....

Having spent sometime now suffering the indignity not to say inconvenience of the dreaded 'man-flu' that culminated in being woken one night by the sound of my own voice calling out "I've got a pocketful of bees"  (yes, I was asleep but had dreamt I had a pocket full of live bees!),I was so pleased when today at last I felt the urge to pick up the camera again.

My enforced sabbatical, probably not the best choice of descriptive word actually, as I believe a true sabbatical lasted in excess of 2 months and even I couldn't claim my suffering was of those dimensions but it did keep me away from the real world for a while and long enough for Lennon's terrific 'Watching The Wheels' to keep running around my head-alongside that is, the little guy with the lump-hammer trying to blast his was out of my skull.

Yesterday when I rose from yet another fitful night's sleep (you don't think I'm laying this flu thing on a little too thick do you?........ Oh good)- my other half said to me " You're still coughing quite badly" "I know" I said, "I've been practising all night too".

I'm rambling already-perhaps I'm still delirious? Nurse! Nurse!....

Ah! I remember now, photography.....

What I was thinking of impressing on you was that in terms of insects and bugs to photograph, I didn't really miss out. The weather has been so poor of late in this part of the world that subjects would have been next to impossible to find anyway.
And so, (finally, he's arrived at the point of the blog entry?),to ease myself back in with nothing more stressful than a stationary target, I decided on taking a few photos of the ice that had formed in our back garden.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO VIEW LARGER & ON BLACK

(These do seem to show more detail against the black background)

These shots were all taken of the ice that formed on our bird-bath. I used a diffused flash as the light is still quite poor at this time of year. It's amazing just what patterns and formations there are. I could look at these for ages and pick out different things each time.

The ice pictured above is just something that formed on the very edge of a plant pot.

This last image is a closer view of an ice block

After an hour or so in the garden taking these photographs, I began to realise that it wasn't quite as mild as I had assumed from my chair in our cosy living room and probably the best course of action would be to 'leg-it' back to that very same chair!

By then my camera hand was f-f-f-f-freezin' cold,so much so that I made myself a hot coffee and then spilled it in my lap- but actually enjoyed the sensation. Yes, it has been a cold February in Kent, so much so that when our electricity bill arrived this morning it had a letter of condolence attached to it.

Freezing temperatures, a dose of the flu (did I mention that already?),a dearth of inverts to photograph, that has to be winter's last efforts to depress me right? From now on things are set to change-I can feel it in my water, although, thinking about it further, it may not be change I can feel in my water? It could be 'Lem-sip'?

No, that's winter's last hoorah! I'm sure of it.

Until the next time then...

Postscript: The news of my work in print that I spoke of a couple of entries ago has now become a reality and I shall be contributing an article with photos to a local free paper 4 weekly from now on.
I'll try and post a copy of each one as it appears on the 'Published Articles' page of this blog. I have already added the one for Feb.