Hover Fly

Not anything of note going on round here this week. Yesterday's storms passed us by. Looks like being a wet day today.  Earlier in the week I was sorting out a problem with the pump on the water feature when a persistent hover fly kept getting in the way. They seem to be one of the most inquisitive insects, often hovering a few inched from my face. Maybe they can't quite believe what they are seeing.  This one kept landing on the plastic box of screws I was trying to use.



No matter how many times I shooed it away it returned to the same spot to give its eyes a thorough wash and brush up.

Hovering Again

Apart from our one walkabout we spent most of yesterday lounging in the garden. Saw a few blue butterflies flitting through but so far none stopped long enough for a photograph. There were several hover flies which spent all day hovering around the same section of the garden so I had another session trying to get flight shots.









Adrian was quite correct when he commented last time that head on shots seem impossible. Several times I tried moving in front of one but they always turned away.

This time I used the Canon 70-200 mm IS zoom lens on manual focus. Though the minimum focus distance is about 4 feet it doesn't change whatever zoom is used.  I fixed the aperture at f11 to get a reasonable depth of focus.  As well as missing the blue butterflies I also missed a really good sighting of a buzzard when the auto focus wouldn't lock on it.

A Quick Burst

This time I went in the garden with the 100 - 500mm zoom lens hand held with manual focus. This is the first time I have set the camera to burst mode where it can take up to seven photos a second. I hoped that might give me a better chance of catching an insect in flight. Holding this set up anything near steady is quite a tussle as it weighs about 2.7Kg

First spotted though was this Small Tortoise butterfly resting



Then a hover fly led me a merry dance but out of dozens of flight shots a couple were reasonable.





Resting giving its wings a Spring clean



Finally a Peacock butterfly landed nearby



Feeding on a Dandelion



Another good afternoon in the Sun. Clear sky can mean warm daylight hours. Two days ago it reached 15C. Yesterday about 12C. Clear sky at night is a different matter this time of year. Lowest air temperature in the wee small hours was -2C with a good layer of frost.

All the photos here are small crops.

Looking Waspish

Hoverfly on Thistle flower




Taken with Nikon Coolpix S9050

Helophilus pendulus

Bit of a mouthful, sounds exotic, actually a pretty hoverfly:





For once I didn't have to go chasing to take a photo. This hoverfly was resting on a planter and obligingly waited while I took a few photos with the Nikon S9050 from just a few inches away. These are still small crops as the lens has to be set to its widest angle to take close shots.

Macro Bits

Sycamore seed:



Plantain Flower:



Hoverfly and Pollen Beetles:

Preening Hoverfly - Video

A bit more practice with macro video making:



A different lens combination used this time.
Canon 50D running Magic Lantern software, Canon 70-200mm USM lens fitted with Raynox DCR-150 macro close-up lens:



Also I remembered to check the ISO which had been at 800 but I reduced that to 200. As the wind was blowing a bit even small movements can put things out of focus at macro ranges. I used a retort stand and clamp to gently steady the Sunflower as much as I could:



The Japanese made Raynox conversion lenses have very good reviews. The DCR-150 works well with the 70-200mm lens where the zoom can be used to frame the subject and has a reasonable range of focus. Also I don't have to be very close, well not the few cm needed with the Nikon but 20cm+ for this combination. There is also a DCR 250 which would magnify even more but would need very steady subjects and I think would be hard to use 'in the field'. The Raynox is designed to use on the front of a telephoto lens, has a 43mm fitting but also comes with an adaptor which will fit 52-67mm threads by the use of two sprung clips built into it. The clips are grooved so they hold tight in the filter threads.

Details of Raynox lenses can be found here.

Macro Session

After an exchange of ideas with Adrian I had a hunt round to see what lenses I had acquired and forgotten about over the years. One thing I found was a cheap set of add on macro lenses. Fortunately these fit the Sigma 28-80mm macro lens so I decided to try out the +10. I'm sure I had a play with it when I first got the set but for some reason was disappointed with the results. Probably trying hand held, which is not a good idea for macro shots.

First a 'full frame' photo of a Hoverfly using the above combination:



All the rest will have been cropped to a greater or lesser extent:







Finally a couple of stacked photos:
3 stacked shots of a small daisy flower:



5 stacked shots of a ripening miniature bullrush.



No apologies for yet another Bee on Sunflower short video but I was more than a bit chuffed with the result using the extra +10 lens:



Considering how little I paid for the fox Macro +10 add on lens the results were very pleasing to me. The plants were held in 'helping hands' and given extra illumination from an LED ring flash kept on continuous light.

A Sun Fly

Dull start to the day but it soon turned out to be sunny with a mix of blue sky and white clouds. For only the fourth time this year I sat out in the garden with my trusty Sony Walkman blasting through headphones to drown out what a friend always calls 'Black and Decker Day'. A time when everyone seems to be mowing lawns and trimming hedges with a variety of mechanical aids.

From time to time I would have a wander across to the pond to see what was about. Quite a few hoverflies and one bobby dazzler in particular:



Can't say I had noticed this type before so had a quick Google ('they can't touch you for it' as Ken Dodd would say) and quickly found its likeness on the microscopy-uk site HERE which has many very clear photos making identification easy. It turned out what had visited the pond was a Sun Fly (Heliophilus pendulas)



The golden yellow is very bright and really stood out in the sunlight.

Friday at the Flicks - Hoverfly - Garden Pond

There has been little opportunity to video anything new this past week so I had a look through some old videos that I haven't used yet.  The first was shot in October 2009 when Hoverflies were showing great interest in the Ivy flowers.



The second is a view of my pond. This was never meant to be a public video. In March last year I got it into my head to attempt to build a 'steady cam' as the commercial ones seem so expensive. The idea is that the camera is mounted under a universal joint which, with counterbalance weights, is supposed to keep the camera view steady as the operator moves. I think I can claim it was partially successful. I tested it out as I walked up and down beside my garden pond.



The idea was to improve the design this past Summer but, as usual, that got buried on the Round Tuit pile.
The pond is just a large rectangular shape and very shallow as it was originally designed for testing radio controlled boats. That didn't last very long and I have been lucky that, with addition of pond plants, it has matured and attracts a variety of wildlife which includes, frogs, newts, damselflies and dragonflies.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Wings for Wednesday

Lots of winged insects about the garden and house at the moment.

A small Cranefly on the kitchen window.



One sunny day there were three Common Darter Dragonflies around the garden pond. All were males. One stayed for several hours and chased away any others which dared to make an appearance.





There continue to be Blue-tailed Damsel Flies from time to time which are still breeding.



I have a wasp nest under my front hedge so I don't hang about there. Occasionally one strays indoors where my rule is 'The only good wasp is a dead one'.




Also found dead in the kitchen was this which was about 6mm long.
Probably an ichneumon wasp though no idea which.



Back outdoors found several Greenbottles



and this black bee.



Not sure what type it is - a miner bee maybe.

Finally there were plenty of hoverflies doing their best to thwart me snapping one in flight.

Wings for Wednesday

There are two plants in the front garden which are attracting plenty of winged creatures at the moment. Lavender and Hibiscus.

Bees:




Hoverflies:




Flies:


Wasps:


Notice anything missing? Butterflies! Last year the lavender especially was a great attraction for butterflies. To date this year I haven't seen one on or near these plants.

All photographs were taken with the Lumix TZ7, usually with the lens within three inches of the insect. Not a problem with the bees and hoverflies but can be a bit fraught when it comes to wasps.

Friday at the Flicks - Hedgehog, Hoverflies

There hasn't been a deal of activity here recently. Also I have been experimenting with some of the effects in Corel Video Studio.

I only switch on the night recording equipment every so often to check that Hedgehogs are still about. This one had obviously got the scent of something but couldn't work out what.



It was only an hour ago I spotted that the hoverflies were attracted to the pond lilies, especially the white ones:


Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Wings Over the Garden Pond

I don't know why but I am surprised every time I see a bee visit the flowers on the water lilies. So far I haven't managed a good photo of one but there are also plenty of hover flies visiting:



A daily visitor at the moment is a Common Darter Dragonfly, at least I assume it is the same one which comes looking for a meal.



Yesterday I thought I was going to manage a photo and possibly some video of the Blue-tailed Damselflies mating. There were a couple which spent a good quarter of an hour gradually getting closer to each other, finally ending up on the same perch. (not the best of photos, sorry)



When they got round to arching their bodies and looked as though the event was about to happen up turns a second female which tried to join in on the act. Unfortunately that was the end of that - for a while anyway.



All three flew off in different directions and as I had visitors arrive I didn't see the damselflies again.

Minibeasts

When I was primary school teaching one of the things my class and I looked forward to was a day out of the classroom exploring the local countryside to see what insects and other small creatures were about. Then would come the task of identification and finding out about their life cycle and habitat.That was in the days before the National Curriculum when the teacher was able to decide what the children would learn, chose the best times to go about it and allotted the time needed accordingly.

Not too many minibeasts spotted here at the moment. At last I did find one Speckled Wood Butterfly taking a rest from flitting all over the place though it steadfastly refused to open its wings fully.



I am not sure whether this was a small beetle or a small fly which spent a couple of hours on the outside of the kitchen window. It made a change to get a blue sky as a background!



A Hoverfly taking a rare rest.



Here a Common Green Shield Bug which spent about six hours in the same position on the outside of the kitchen window. The only time it moved was to angle itself to catch the Sun when it eventually lit up that part of the window,



It wasn't until I enlarged the photos that I noticed that this little bug was missing two of its six legs.



All the above were taken with the Lumix TZ7. There are still scores of seven spot ladybirds about. The tadpoles in the nursery pond are coming along nicely.