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Towlersonsafari

The even smaller Green Dock beetle (Gastrophysa viridula)  the pregnant females have very swollen abdomens these are only 4-8mm long

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Towlersonsafari

And the red headed cardinal Beetle (pyrochroa serraticorius)

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Towlersonsafari

And a new dragonfly for us the Hairy Dragonfly (Brachyton pratense0 the only hawker flying in May

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  • 4 weeks later...
Towlersonsafari

This is the Golden Bloomed grey longhorn beetle (Agapanthia villosoviridescens)

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Towlersonsafari

and i think this is the Dock Bug-it feeds on dock leaves apparently-(Coreus marginatus)

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@Towlersonsafari

Congratulations for all these excellent photographies showing insects, butterflies or whatever you can discover in your surroundings.  It's far more interesting than a series of sleeping lions.

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10 hours ago, Bush dog said:

@Towlersonsafari

Congratulations for all these excellent photographies showing insects, butterflies or whatever you can discover in your surroundings.  It's far more interesting than a series of sleeping lions.

 

I too am hugely impressed by the macro and closeup images in this thread.  It's not something that I've concentrated on, but it is still of great interest. Years ago, I found myself photographing such creatures as dragonflies and damsel flies while staking out a mallee country dam waiting for bigger wildlife to come to drink.  My efforts with film camera and long lens (the subjects were too far away for a macro lens even if I'd been armed with one) sometimes produced pleasing results. But I've never acquired a field guide to enable me to ID the subjects precisely.

 

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I was a bit shocked one night to blunder into an orb weaver web in my backyard. I discovered back in the living room that I had brought the owner of the web inside on my clothing. From then on, I was more careful outside at night, and took the occasional photograph.

 

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Much more recently, armed with a digital camera and macro lens, I captured a Golden orb weaver in daylight.  I carefully protected her and her web for some time. Occasionally I spotted her tiny male companion hanging around on the web nearby, possibly waiting his chance to mate and not be eaten by her.  She and the web eventually disappeared.

 

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Edited by John M.
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Towlersonsafari

Thank you @Bush dog-it does bring an added dimension to our ambling around the locla area- and just reinforces my general ignorance about insects in particular! I have a few filed guides and it is fun trying to identify the insects from the photo's. There is also a very good site for the Uk- the British dragonfly society page

https://british-dragonflies.org.uk/

thta is helpful

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  • 1 month later...
Towlersonsafari

so after a very wet Friday we went out to our local nature reserve and found some strange looking flies basking in some much needed sun the first is a type of Greenbottle, the second possibly Sarcophaga carnaria- a member of the Flesh flies-some lay there eggs in the flesh wounds of mammals and others lay maggots rather than eggs and the last is i think a parasitic fly Nowickia ferox its host is a type of moth

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Towlersonsafari

and here is my first pictire of a Brown hawker- a big brown dragonfly that seems to patrol low over bushes etc and we were lucky enough to see it land  Aeshna grandis-this is a female-yellow markings on sidenof the thorax

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  • 2 weeks later...
Towlersonsafari

i have posted a picture of a scorpion fly before but this one captures its rather impressive proboscis- as wella s the reason its called a scorpion fly1 there are 3 species in the Uk of the order Mecoptera but to make a correct identifaction one must examine the genitals and we had not been properly introduced

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Towlersonsafari

On a recent visit to RSPB lakenheath , where a bittern flew over our heads and we saw a family of common Cranes, we also saw an Ichneumonid wasp (there are apparently over 2500 species in the UK)  struggling with a large caterpillar ( I do not have a guide to upside down caterpliiars of the UK) it finally manged to drag it down its hole, where it would meet its rather grusome fate of being a living paralyzed feast for the larvae of the wasp. The caterpillar seemed to get caught up in plants and the wasp was beating its wings trying to get traction

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  • 5 weeks later...

A willow emerald damselfly - a new arrival in my neighbourhood tis year:

 

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Migrant Hawker Dragonfly in flight. The last week or so has seen quite a few of these lovely dragonflies on my local ponds:

 

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Nikon Z9, 100-400mm lens and 1.4 T/C @ 540mm, 1/500sec, f/8, ISO 400

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  • 3 months later...

I think these are all Green Darner Dragonfly

 

Not my normal targets but great fun and photographing them gave an excellent insight into the focussing abilities of the Nikon Z8.

The only way i could get the camera to focus (other than manually) was if there was sufficient separation betwene subject & background. If there was anything else to grab onto, the focussing system completely missed the dragonfly.

 

Green Darner Dragonfly

 

Green Darner Dragonfly

 

Green Darner Dragonfly

 

Green Darner Dragonfly

 

 

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