Not giving up without a fight.

I think I may have spoken too soon last week, there was I casting the summer into the distance when in  reality it was right there all around me still giving its all.

Friday saw me doing dragonflies in beautiful sunlight, who'd have thought that eh? It was a good week really I intended to do a bit of birding but having looked at my garden visitors I don't think they are quite ready yet. I have a bald headed Blackbird that comes to my garden so I stuck to the bugs. Funnily enough they seemed to want to make it easy for me with no less than 3 shield bugs being found in or around my house. unfortunately two were dead, I am confident that one of them was a Birch shield bug, and the other a Forest shield bug. Roxy found the living bug in my lounge, that too was a Forest Bug.

in adult stage.

I found Hawthorn shield bug in various stages. From a very early stage,

Right up to adult stage.

Its very difficult to find some of these bugs. I have literally looked at hundreds of Hawthorn bushes, although that makes a change from the hundreds of bramble bushes I looked for Sloe bugs in. A couple of posts ago I said that I'd seen lots of Green Shield bug larva but no adults, well it must be the right time of the year now as I have seen quite a few.

Something slightly different this week came in the form of this little critter.

I believe that it is a Notostera Elongata. This is a female of the species I believe. I also had the luck to come across a particularly sweet example of the Scorpion fly.

I tried to get a crab spider and managed a reasonable shot but it wouldn't stop still.

It is possibly the nicest arachnid isn't it?

Dragonflies were mentioned at the beginning of this post, I spent possibly the best 2 hours or so of my time this year at the side of a largely overgrown pool watching and trying to photograph Southern Hawkers, Migrant Hawkers, Common Darters, Ruddy Darters and Common Blue Damselflies. But in all honesty if I had not clicked the shutter once during that time it still would have been fabulous experience. I had Common Darter land on my arm and chest, I had Hawkers hovering so close in front of my 300mm lens that I could not focus on them, but the highlight of the day was a female Sparrowhawk that flew over my head and across infront of me on two occasions. On the second occasion she hit a blackbird in a bush about 50 yards away, I wasn't close enough to photograph it and she was up and off very quickly, but wow what an experience.

I did get a few shots, but due to the position of the sun and the growth around the pond they weren't quite what I would have loved. For that I would have needed to have been standing in the water and my name is not Chris Grady.

A mix of Migrant, Common Darter, and Southern there.

On a slightly different note I am intending to move up north again soon, back to Chester, I am hoping it will have all happened by the end of October, If it does I am so looking forward to winter waders etc on the Dee estuary. My mother has struggled with winter for the last two years so I am moving nearer to be of help to her and my siblings.

Summers End

Summer is most definately coming to an end, although the weather over the last few days has been exceptional, really warm and sunny. The nights are drawing in and are definately cooler, this has reflected in what I've been seeing out on the ground. Grasshopper and Cricket numbers have dropped right off, walking around the hedges of the park yesterday I saw only one Dark Bush Cricket and no Speckled Bush or Grasshoppers, whereas last week I was falling over them.

Butterfly numbers have dropped too, there are still good numbers of Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper and Large White, but not as many as a week ago. Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock seem to have had their last flourish too, with only a few being seen.

This Speckled Wood was also seen this week.



A pair of moth caterpillars have kept me interested also this week, with the identity of the second being a little difficult to establish. The first is another example of the Vaporer Moth caterpillar.

The second I believe is the caterpillar of the Scarlet Tiger moth, Andy Carey agrees too but if you think different then please let me know. I found it in a gateway to a field in amongst bramble and grass.

Bugs have kept me going again this week too. I have added another species to my list of adult Shield bugs, finally finding a Hawthorn Shield bug.

but also a different stage larva or nymph of the same species.

You will remember the brightly coloured Troilus Luridus larva I showed you the other week, here it is again incase you have forgotten.

well here it is in a slightly different form.

Stunning I think you will agree.

A couple of birds for you next, adult and juvenile Mute Swan.

The Juv' really is an ugly duckling compared to its parents.The five cygnets are doing really well and proving to be a great draw for the locals. The Terrapin are making the last of the summer sun too, basking on what has become their favourite tree since the last one was messed about with by the fishermen and subsequently lost to the flood earlier in the year.

This shot was taken yesterday (sat), but slightly out of shot was this next critter, it was the size of a tennis ball and about 12 inches further up the tree.

The previous three were almost definately Red Eared Terrapin but is this one the same species? it doesn't look like it does it?

To finish off this week I have some dragonflies, I spent quite a bit of time this week trying to get dragonflies in flight, not as easy as it sounds. Here are a few of my efforts.

not brilliant but I'm getting there. The top one, I believe, is a Migrant Hawker whereas the bottom two are Southern Hawkers. Two different locations in and around Hereford. I did manage to get shots of a pair of Migrant Hawkers doing what they do best.

and funnily enough whilst I was trying to get them this one landed at the top of the stick.



Like buses, nothing for ages then three at once.

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks posting. Oh and for those of you who might have seen the post relating to me selling my 600mm lens and are wondering where its gone, I have been talked out of selling by my friends, so I will hang on to it for a while.

Small is beautiful.

I'm sorry but its only small stuff again this week. The opportunities for bird photography really are restricted in Hereford, but I am going to try and obtain permission for a feeder station in one of the many orchards nearby over winter so hopefully something will come of that.

I am enjoying the small stuff though, endless hours of searching through hedgerows etc can be fun, getting shield bugs to stay still whilst you photograph them can be challenging as well. They scurry to the edge of the leaf on which they are sitting and just fall off. For every bug I photograph I lose at least 3 others.

I will start this week with something slightly different, the gravel pits that I go to just outside of Hereford have come alive with dragonflies.Hawkers and Common Darters were everywhere.

Migrant Hawkers;

Catching them landed is not as easy as you may think though, the top pair were relatively straight forward as they were far too busy doing other things, but the one below was high in a hedgerow and difficult to get.

Common Darter:

Commons tease and tantalise, they land a little way infront of you, wait for you to put your tripod down and then move off another couple of feet. The trick is to watch where they land and wait until they fly off of their own accord then move to within a good distance of the spot and wait, they will very often return to the same spot and if you are already in place they dont seem to mind how close you are.

Back to the hedgerows around my home, petrol prices have gone up by 6p a litre in the last month so I am restricted to mostly walking around my patch, my trip to the gravel pits was combined with going to see my grandson to save the expense of two trips.

I have seen literally thousands of Garden spiders on their webs over the last few weeks, they are by far the most common of the spiders I see. They average in size from the tiny to about half an inch to maybe an inch in size, other than this one.

This one is a monster, it's very pale in colour but has the markings of a Garden Spider. This is a full frame shot using my 100mm macro lens from about 10 inches away, I believe this spider measures over 2 inches in length, which is about an inch bigger than my Collins spider book says it should grow. I have returned to the spot where I found it on three different occasions and it sits and looks at me as if to say "dare you?" It fascinates me with its size. it is truly huge. The stuff childhood nightmares are made of.

I have managed a close up of a Large Winged Conehead, another species that I find very difficult to photograph with my 100 lens, I quite like this one.

Shield bugs have continued to be my main target. I was chuffed to get the Troilus Luridus last week, a very brightly coloured larva that looks nothing like itself in adult form.

and more Sloe bugs,

and the rather impressive Coreus Marginatus or Dock leaf shield bug

and its larva.

and hundreds of Green shield bug larva, but not one adult.

Thanks for looking and see you next week.