An evening of opportunities..

Sometimes when I am heading out for a photography session my target subjects aren't always readily available.. Nothing new where wildlife is concerned! However, not wanting to go home with an empty card I tried quite hard to look for some Marbled white butterflies at one of my best sites, but to no avail.. I did however manage to find a caterpillar of a very colourful moth - The Burnet Moth, probably a five-spot as they are generally in good numbers on this site.

I also came across a few orchids including several Pyramidal orchids. Not unlike other places in the country most of the orchids around here seem to have suffered the lack of rain water and as a result don't seem to be in quite the condition you might expect, and often quite stunted in terms of height.

On my way home I decided I would try my hand at capturing some of the movement in the traffic on the main artery road that leads from the Dover docks to the rest of the world, the A2.. However, not quite as much traffic on the road as I had hoped but I guess I'll go back for more..

Not bad records considering I only went out to try and photograph butterflies!

A Morning of Macro..!

Out and about from 5am this morning looking for subjects for some macro photography. Our target species was the beautiful, Banded demoiselle, but alas there were none present in our usual spot! However, we were rewarded with a few little gems amongst the undergrowth..

Who would have known that mosquitos could have looked so good..!

Green Woodpecker - Revisited

Back in 2008 I had the opportunity to set up my chair hide and photograph Green woodpeckers busy feeding their young in an old apple tree, in a friends garden. Unfortunately at the time the light was really against me and the light under the canopy was almost non-existent making for difficult photography conditions.

I recently reviewed some of the photographs I took at that time and decided to share a few with you. If for nothing else because they are a great record from the time. Maybe one day I will have the opportunity again.

So here is the chair hide in action and the nest site in the apple tree, below the canopy at the left of the frame.

Here the parent bird has just provided, chick 1 of 2 a nice, tasty bug and the second chick is demanding more..

Here are the chicks in question and they just can't wait for the parents to return..!

Here's an image of mum removing a faecal sac from the nest.. Business as usual..  

It's nice to go back over some images and I must do more of it so that I can clean out some of the old rubbish from my external hard drives. I also need to think about digitising my slide images at some point, but time just wont allow it just now.

An Evening of Yellow Hammers

Firstly, welcome to my first 'Blogging' experience..! I will be trying to keep you up to date with my photographic forays and field work and hope you enjoying sharing the fun..

Yesterday was an early start at 05:00hrs and out to a local lakeland spot for images of Damselflies and other macro subjects. (Click image to enlarge)

The day was then ended with a really nice encounter with Yellow Hammers. A beautifully coloured bird, almost canary like,  that frequents the open countryside and hedgerows.. The evening was finished off with a Bat survey whereby we counted in excess of 800 bats leaving the loft space of a small, nearby cottage.. Really quite an impressive site and a pleasure to be involved with. (Click image to enlarge)