Butterfly Review pt3 july 11th - 31st august 2011

Continuing the review of my butterfly adventures,  another trip to Oversley wood hoping to see more Purple Emperors,  just as i got in the car park, Gill arrived which was unexpected, so i had good company for the day :)    unfortunately no Emperors were to be seen, and very few butterflies considering it was such a warm sunny day!!!!   i did shoot a ringlet Lol

then a stunning Peacock :)

As there where so few butterfies showing , Gill suggested we take a look at a place called "Deans Green "  which is near Henly in Arden.  not too far away, evidently there are good numbers of Marbled whites there!

She was correct, there were loads of them along with Gatekeepers

It ended up another great trip with all the other species of insect shot that day :)

My next trip was july 19 th , back up at Arnside Knott in Cumbria hoping to see freshly emerging Scotch Argus :)

First a walk down to the lower terraces to see if any High brown fritillaries were showing!  here is one of the rarest uk butterflies on my finger!   how cool is that !

And my target species , the Scotch Argus.  another extremely rare butterfly, only found in Cumbria at 2 or 3 sites and in Scotland.

My next trip was july 23 again at Arnside

a beautiful Common blue

and a Northern brown Argus laying eggs!

The next day i went back to Oversley wood , but only managed a few Silver washed fritillary shots, here we have male and female shots

Next trip was back yet again to arnside on the 25 july

on the lower terraces this beautiful Painted lady landed right on the path in front of me :)

1st August i was at Whixall moss in Shropshire, where i shot the beautiful Small copper:)

and a Speckled wood.

The next trip was on the 14 th August, a long trip down to Grafton wood in Worcestershire to hopefully see another of uks most elusive and probably one of the most beautiful species, the Brown Hairstreak :)

first i found a Brown Argus

and a Small Tortoishell

Finally after over 3 hours i saw my first ever Brown Hairstreak,  WOW! they are absolutely stunning!

Definitely one of the most beautiful uk butterflies!

And a male feeding! note he is quite dull in colouration in comparison to the females.

 a White !

after seeing 6 Brown Hairstreak i went back to Grafton wood  the following sunday 21st  and had an amazing day, eventually seeing 9 individuals!!!!!!!

                          My last butterfly shot in 2011 was at whixall moss, a small copper!

                                                   That trip ended my 2011 Butterfly Adventures

                                             all images shot with canon 5d2 and 100mmL macro lens

                                                                           And finally
       I would like to thank Gillian Thompson for all her help , advice  and good company on so many trips in  2011,    many of this years butterfly images would not have been possible without her help.

                                                                        Thank you Gill :)      

                                     Looking forward to many more great butterfly adventures in 2012

                                                                                  Phil.

  

Jan 8th Alian Blob and springtails at whixall moss

I travelled to whixall moss in Shropshire this morning just to get out shooting, the forecast looked ok!

The plan was to look for more springtails , hopefully a few different species , as i have only been shooting globulars recently.

It was quite overcast when i arrived, but still warmish and still.  almost straight away i found some springys on the wooden fence posts :)
they are very small, about 2  mm in length , shot at x5 mag with canon mpe-65 and cropped!

                                               And another one, not sure if different species.

  I then found a Ant-mimic spider,  not a good shot ,but i have only ever seen one before !    this one did not want to be shot so this is the only shot i got!!!!!

i then found "THE BLOB"   it is in fact a Hoverfly larvae , not seen one before but they have very interesting skin textures!   it was about 10mm in length.

                                                           amazing translucent skin!!!!

A  few more springtail shots :)

Then another spider, a male with big boxing gloves !   Haha

Then the rain came!!!!   i got soaked!! and that was the end of the shoot:(

all images canon 5d2, mpe-65

New year Springtails

My first macro shots of 2012!

went into the garden to find a few globular springtails, tiny little bugs approx 1-2 mm in size.
all were shot at the mpe-65 maximum magnification of x5 .using 5d2   full frame camera does have its disadvantages, losing quite a bit of magnification compared to crop sensor body's!

The first springtails i found were a globular species Dicyrtomina minuta , i had not noticed this species in the garden before.   they are Soooo  Cute :)  probably just under 1mm in length!

shot at f7  , i had inadvertently left camera in av mode, and shot at 1/60th shutterspeed full flash!   but came out superbly well!

Most of these shots are 2 frame focus stacks, where multiple frames each with a slightly different focal point are merged to increase depth of field!  which at this magnification is a lot less than 1mm!

I found these tiny springtails under a piece of fallen tree bark that was in  the garden,  another species of globular springtail, Dicyrtomina saundersi was also present, i think this is one of the commonest species!  they do vary in colour quite a lot, but always have nice pattering on the body.  

this one was a bit bigger at approx 1.5 mm :)

shot in manual mode, full flash, f6.3,  1/200th

A couple days later , after heavy rain , shot  another one , a paler individual!  i have been shooting them on the back steps, the stone is nice natural setting!

This is probably my best ever globular image!  ever!

and another shot of it  running along the edge of the step!  Lol

and then i found a casualty,  a problem with being so tiny, i trod on one!   OOPS !

Im Sorry!

another one shot on wet bark, very difficult to get good exposure, had to combine 2 exposures of the same frame altered in RAW to get this shot looking ok!

all images shot with canon 5d2 and mpe-65 at maximum magnification.

Afon Lloer ,Tryfan and Llyn Ogwen Jan 2nd 2012

My first trip of the year !

  Back into the Ogwen valley in Snowdonia, North wales.  this time i was going to climb the Afon Lloer waterfalls up to the lake Ffynnon Lloer , at a height of 2,225 feet (678 m)   not a very good lake to shoot photos but a good climb with excellent views!

It was fairly dark and gloomy when i left the main road that runs along Llyn Ogwen, here is the first shot of the Ogwen valley with the Devils kitchen in the distance!

and a view of the direction i will be climbing, you can see the waterfalls in the centre top  :)   lol

After a good climb across saturated ground i eventually came to the first set of falls.  Its not normal to shoot "Down" a waterfall ,but i think it works well leading into the scene!

a little bit higher !

Tryfan on the left, with Llyn Ogwen  and the Devils Kitchen on the right!

a portrait view from same spot!

                             Another short climb, getting quite cold now and wind picking up!  

                                                                a view up the waterfall!  
  the uppermost falls in this shot are where the next image was taken, a steep hard climb over extremely wet boggy ground!    who says there hasn't been much rain this winter!!!!    They lied!

A wide angle view of the stunning valley!  over to the right , a third way across you can see Cwm Idwal, the lake beneath the Devils kitchen which was shown in the last Snowdonia Blog from last week!  you can already see i have climbed a lot higher today!  and a long way to go yet!   lol

             Another steep climb up to "the wall "where the falls start to change direction up to the lake!
                                                        about 3/4 the way up now! 
        a heavy hail shower crossing over the Glyders towards Tryfan, it kept going left fortunately :)

      looking up the falls , another very steep climb up to the plateau where the ground levels out a bit

                                                                      almost there now!

From near the top of this section of falls, here is a wide view showing the glorious mountain scenery,  the ground now has quite a few hail stones lying!   Yes its cold up here!!!!!!  you can see "the Wall" in the bottom left corner where i shot the previous but one image!

       The falls level out now leading up to the small lake!  Yes there is a small amount of snow still around from the previous week high up on the high ridge!

And this is where the falls come out of the small non discript lake that was not ever worth taking an image of !   lol

Turning around i moved over to get a high view of the valley , and with hail stones on the ground and  light shafts coming from Tryfan shot this image :)   My favorite of the day with the only decent light!

just to the right of Tryfan you can just about make out the second mountain lake Llyn Bochlywd which is over to the left of Cwn idwal but much higher up!

                                               It really is a stunning view from up here!!!!!!!

I then descended down to the right towards "the Wall " again, where there is a fine view down the valley towards Cwm Idwal in the distance!

                     And a slightly wider view showing the "Ladder" to help climb Tryfan!    Haha :)

                  On the way down just one more shot looking back up the lower part of the falls:)    

The end of a great first adventure of 2012.

all images taken with canon 5d2 and 17-40L