A few bits and bobs from August

Had a few trips arpund various places, Kenfig, Cwm Col-Huw, Lincoln, our garden, here are some of the photos that I liked.

This is from Cwm Col-Huw, farmers field behind the reserve, grain ready to harvest in the evening sunlight

A few hoverflys

 This is a Helophilus pendulus, a nice little fly - well marked and quite easy to ID

This is a 'common' one, a vagrant visitor, Sphaerophoria scripta, as you can see no common names for these.

On the other hand, the dragons have common names

 Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum, they are nice dragons and a lot around at the moment

This one is a Migrant Hawker, Aeshna mixta. It was taken in Lincoln in mother in laws garden, not uncommon but less seen than others.

 A Flower Beetle, he was not happy at me taking his picture - very much a 'My Flower, back off !' type of thing.

Butterflys,  common and a lot about this year - Speckled Wood, like them a lot, any woodland glade or ride, in fact anywhere there are a few trees !

To finish off a favourite flower - Autumn Ladies Tresses, the latin name says it all - Spiranthes spiralis, the flowers are on a spike around 6cm tall, rarely more, and spiral up the stem. They are lovely close up - ( why I like Macro ) they look to be made of spun sugar or frozen water

Thats enough for now, some more later when I get chance to take them

Conundrum - well for the first couple anyway

When is a Hoverfly not a Hoverfly ?

When its a Soldier fly - took this one last year down in Dorset - thought it was a hoverfly but its actually a Soldier fly, Oxycera rara - nice though, and goes to prove the wasp mimic act does not always work !

In this case - its no longer a hoverfly, its a wasps dinner! and 10 seconds later so was the other one !

This one is a common Hover,  Marmalade Hoverfly - Episyrphus balteatus, one of the few with a 'common' name

One of my favourites Xanthogramma pedissequum, the range of Hoverflies is amazing, many are bee mimics and a lot are wasp mimics, the larval stage feed hevily on greenfly - whats not to like !

Just one more, Scaeva selenitica, thats enough for now - will put up a few more another day

Disaster

Well clumsy carp here has had a bit of a disaster, I dropped my Speedlight flashgun, only a foot or so and it was in its case but it appears the SB600 has a nasty design flaw. Minor drops can crack a solder joint on one component on the controller board and the blasted thing will not power up - ho hum will try to solder it and see if that fixers it - failing that raids the piggy bank !

A few days later  .............

Well that did not work so I am now the owner of a Yongnuo Speedlight, seems to work fine and was the same price new as the Nikon 2nd hand.  Time will tell when I get chance to use it in the field

 But anyway prior to this a few plays with various locations - a few Hoverflies, they are fascinating and very diverse, and for those that are not sure - they are the 2nd most important pollinator after Bees ! - if you use the thrice cursed Farcebook, this site is interesting and useful to see the diversity of Hovers and get IDs from the people who wrote the book, the one I now have to aid my IDs, failing that I post them here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/609272232450940/

Also a few flowers and other assorted bugs, just for the heck of it, I had a day out at Lincoln Whisby Nature reserve a short time ago so some from there, some from local Parc Slip Reserve and also a few from Llanelli WWT as well as some from the back garden

Not in any specific order, a few images, a few too many are 'bird on a stick' shots. By that I mean they are subject shots for ID purposes rather than aesthetically pleasing images. Working on it !

 A Mining Bee - Andrena pilipes

 A Robber Fly with prey, it took the moth out of the air in front of me !

 A arty shot of a teasel 

Commonly known as a Hornet fly - Volucella zonaria, one of the biggest Hovers

 Eristalis tenax Hover on Marjoram

 A Japanese anemone, with a bit of creative flash and contrast work in elements

 

A Magpie moth, the git landed on the plastic greenhouse and would not shift, rather than lose the shot completely I limited the background to this at the cost of sharpness on the lh wing 

 Another Hover, Scaeva pyrastri, this one migrates in from Europe !

 A Comma butterfly, love them when they are so fresh 

 A Common Blue Damselfly, Enallagma cyathigerum,  from the business end !

 This one is limited to the specie, Syrphus sp cant ID below that level

 This is known as the Marmalade Hover, Episyrphus balteatus, the most common of them all

A toad, one of many that was wandering around the grassland at Whisby

 Everybody loves our native Orchids, The Bee Orchid, Ophrys apifera, always looks like a laughing jester with the cocked over hat

A close up, nicer background !

 A longhorn beetle Strangalia maculata (in old money) now known as Rutpela maculata 

Ahh, the flies, they all landed like this - then took off, buzzed about and then landed like this again - some say its north south alignment due to magnetic force, me,  I wonder about breeze and scenting pheremones for a female ?

Anyway, thats more than enough for now I think.

Fill in Flash off camera.

Still playing with the flash set up and camera – not happy with it yet, work in progress. I am getting some interesting results but having to adapt and change things on the fly, I suspect I may well have to do that ongoing for some time.

There is so much variance in backgrounds and light between shots given the subject matter, insects in foliage that it is not going to be a simple task. The ttl flash/camera link should cope at some level but not across the range I seem to be shooting while using ‘fixed’ manual settings for shutter speed, ISO and f stop.

Some work to correct under or in some cases over exposure in Elements with the RAW file but my preference is to get it as close as ‘right’ as I can in camera first so any adjustments are minor and more cosmetic than technical.

Anyway a few shots from the last week playing with the new flash and adapting the use and setup as I go along. 

My apologies, I can never get this stupid software to evenly space things no matter how I try or retry !

An Emerald Damselfly

Okay hands up here a few Hoverlies, not go the names to hand but they are all latin - fascinating critters and a lot more 'types' than you would think ! I will simply show a few and leave it at that. While bees are our most important pollinators they are closely followed by Hoverflies so give them a thought - they are valuable to our ecosystem

 One in flight - they hover very close and then just as you get the camera onto them and focus they dart off to the side, the only way i have got this type of shot is watch them and pre focus - they tend to come back to the same place often so you can grab a shot then

its not a good day out without a spider or a beetle - in this case a crab spider 

and a longhorn beetle

There are always butterflies - in this case a Comma 

 A Small Skipper

 and finally a Common Lizard, this was as close as I could get - full frame on my macro lens

A step forward on my macro photography

I recently bought a speedlight flashgun for my macro set up – to get the depth of field I want at the magnification I want with the low ISO I need to be able to use fill in flash.

I had part of a day at Llanelli WWT at the weekend with my lady to enjoy a walk and to try out the flash on camera, a start to get a feel for the settings I need to get the correct lighting and depth of field etc.

Willow leaves with rain

Horsefly female probably Tabanus autumnalis

Soldier fly Odontomyia viridula

A sawfly on a sowthistle- no idea which !

a BIG Hoverfly - Volucella zonaria

Common Spotted orchid

Emperor Dragonfly

 Following on from that I ordered a sync cable. This will allow me to use the flash ‘off camera’. This is so I could move it to the side of the lens and towards the front so I had more control and could model the light better.

Out in the garden, 

Harvestman

Bee mimic fly

Ruby tail cuckoo wasp circa 10mm

Lots of work to do on getting the base settings correct but it is not a bad start.

The range of insects is interesting and it will require some time to experiment to get the best lighting effect without creating ugly highlights on insects, and ugly shadows on surrounding plants.