A day out with the camera - again

Had a day off today so decided to go and play with the camera, a local area nature reserve – Aberthaw, I managed to get a poor picture of a Green Tiger beetle there a while ago so my view was to try again, 

 

a bit better this time but still lots of room for improvement, a good number of Dragons and Damsels were about, including a Emperor that would not land but was hunting all the time as well as defending territory, one shot I really want to perfect is the in-flight shot so time to practice panning and focusing while panning ! 

not brilliant but not bad for a start. Then there was the shiny new Common Darter 

and a slightly worn Black-tailed Skimmer. If you look closely you can see he was using this piece of polystyrene as a dinner table

Aberthaw has a good number of orchids each year but this year seems to be an absolute stormer – I especially like the Marsh Helleborines 

and the Pyramidal Orchids amongst the 

Common Spotted and Marsh orchids

There was alos this splendid chap - Mullain moth, the actual moth is rather boring in comparison

Then off to Parc Slip and another go at the Emperor in-flight. Being as these guys can do a seriously fast turn of speed, they are after all apex predators I was not too unhappy with my attempts but lots of work to perfect this technique is needed

In all of this a few beetles and other pretties, most people think the leaves turn red and yellow in autumn, the colours are always there all year but you normally only see the green – here is a new leaf with the autumn colours before the green covers it