Friday at the Flicks (Wings over the Garden Pond)

First the Blue-tailed Damselflies. One thing I learned here - don't have the Sun behind you when filming as they reflect so much light back. First a male with its lunch then several views of a female egg laying.



 Next the Common Darter Dragonfly which seems to visit for a short while each day. Here it is resting on a planter. Twice it seems to be about to take off and changes its mind. Fascinating the way its body is pulsating all the time. As always it is constantly on the lookout for danger and food.



Finally the Empid Fly hoovering the lily pad. It seems to use its front legs to feel for and sweep anything edible under that flexible proboscis.



 Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around your patch.

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.

Carling Star Keeps Growing

Yesterday was the first opportunity to take a photo of Angel and Carling Star for a while. Carling Star (Fred) is growing into a handsome young stallion but still stays very close to mum.



I still haven't managed to make a time lapse video of a sunset. Last night there was a possibility but the colourful sky lasted less than a quarter of an hour before the clouds went back to a more normal grey.

Speckled Wood Butterfly

It was the first time for many a long day that a butterfly rested long enough to take a photo while we were taking our afternoon bout of exercise. This Speckled Wood was looking a bit the worse for wear.



Many thanks to Adrian and The Wessex Reiver who pointed me in the right direction for the identification of yesterday's unidentified fly. It would appear to be one of a large number of flies in the group of Empid flies. Reading about their lifestyle I would guess the vacuuming of the lily pad included catching some of the mites which abounded on the leaf. I have a feeling that those tiny creatures are also partly the reason the Blue-tailed damselflies spend so much time on the lily pads - a constant source of three square meals a day!

Weather has been very changeable and a certain hairy monster gets withdrawal symptoms if he can't spend the day sunbathing on the lawn.



Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time Bobby took me for my afternoon walkies.

Another Unidentified Fly

I was filming a damselfly laying eggs in my pond when I noticed this fly on one of the lily pads.



What was unusual was the way it was moving its proboscis side to side across the leaf just like a vacuum cleaner.



I have tried some searches in the hope of finding out what type of fly it is, but so far have found nothing which looks like this one. In size it was about 10 to 12mm in length which might explain why I did not even notice the other bugs on the leaf until I cropped and enlarged the photo. They would appear to be only 1 or 2mm in size.



With luck there may be some video of it on Friday along with the damselfly.

While I was looking for the above fly on the internet I did find what I think is an identification of the red eyed fly from a while ago.



I am now pretty sure it was a Flesh Fly from the group Sarcophagidae. I don't think it will take three guesses to work out what its diet is.

The Soggy Magpie

A couple of days ago, when the rain was very heavy, I spotted a juvenile Magpie on the peanut feeder. I don't remember seeing one on any of the feeders before. They usually scavenge on the ground picking up the seeds dropped by the smaller birds.



Unfortunately the lighting conditions were abysmal and very difficult for obtaining any crisp shots. For a while it stood on the edge of the bird bath for, every so often having a good shake to dry off its feathers.



I tried to take some video but the camcorder insisted on focussing on the raindrops running down the kitchen window.

A Little bit of Tweaking

The only decent view I get of the clouds and sky is looking South from my front garden. In other directions close trees limit the view. This is the view as seen by the Lumix a couple of days ago. To get some contrast in the clouds I let the camera take a 'reading' from the sky before lowering the view to take the shot.





Of course that meant that the foreground was under exposed and it is spoilt by the telephone wires which cross the view.  This seemed a suitable subject for another trial in PaintShop Pro with the Re-dynamizer plugin  First though - get rid of the wires. For that I use  a plugin called Wire Worm. This is one of a small group of plugins which are free. It draws an elongated loop (length and width fully adjustable) to enclose the unwanted part of a picture. This loop is then dragged and nearby pixels are blended in to replace the offending section. The process is better done in short sections.


Next was to let Re-dynamizer do its job. Here I have just used its own suggested settings which have increased the contrast in the clouds and brightened up the foreground. Now we can see 'bee heaven' - the lavender bushes and the Hibiscus that they frequent from dawn to dusk.





As I mentioned a short while ago this plugin is not free but I think well worth the £15 it cost to register, which I have now done. Both pictures have a border which is put on by another free plugin - One from a whole group called Border Mania which includes the gold coloured frame I also use.