Springtail

Plenty of little bugs keep going for a swim in Penny's outside water dish. Mainly Pollen Beetles at the moment but spotted this one in the empty dish: (Length about 3mm)



Quite a little devil to get really close for a macro shot as it kept leaping all over the place but I did manage to get five shots to focus stack for the above picture though I had to make some manual corrections where it had moved its antennae between shots.  I'm pretty sure it is a springtail.

BTW This photo uses the latest incarnation of Flickr's added information. Now it seems to show briefly on loading and then can only be seen as you hover over the picture. So far I don't object to that and clicking on the photo still takes you to a larger view on the Flickr site. I am pleased to see that their people have taken notice of the real dislike penned on the forum regarding the first attempt.

Buff Ermine Moth

Spotted lurking at the bottom of my doorway:



A Buff Ermine Moth (Spilosoma lutea)

Not one of my favourite subjects but couldn't resist a photo before I persuaded it to find somewhere else to rest before it decided to investigate indoors.

Information about this moth can be found HERE on the Garden Safari site. This is usually one of the first places I look hoping for a quick and easy identification of the more common UK creatures.

Guess What

Congratulations and the virtual Midmarsh Gold Star go to Bonnie and Kelly who both identified the close view of a pair of scissors:

   


Hopefully this week's mystery photo won't be too difficult to work out.
Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
No prizes, just for fun and maybe a virtual Midmarsh Gold or Silver Star.

Comma Butterfly and Tiny Black Bugs

On one of our walks down the lane something bright orange stood out amongst all the greenery:



For once it didn't fly away as I gradually crept closer to get a better shot:



A pristine Comma Butterfly.


On our way back home as we passed one large bush covered in bright yellow flowers I could see it was surrounded by hundreds of tiny black insects flying around and covering many of the flowers:





The next day I saw some of the same bugs investigating my yellow marigolds.





In spite of getting some closer shots I haven't yet managed to identify these 2mm long beetles which seem to ignore all other colours of flowers. These usually appear every year, normally around harvest time.

Many thanks to Adrian of Adrian's Images for identifying the Pollen Beetles.

A Little Bit of Australia in my Garden

On impulse I bought a plant which caught my eye on a previous visit to the local garden centre. It is an Anigozanthos. This particular variety is sometimes known as the Red Kangaroo Paw or Red Kangaroo Foot.



A couple of close shots each made up with about six stacked hand held shots so not perfect but do show the beauty of the tiny flower:





Being a native of Australia it isn't exactly suited to our Winters so I don't know whether I will be able to keep it going through to next year.


Serif Affinity Photo Beta
If, like me, you have been using Affinity Photo Beta then you will probably have found out that the beta testing phase has finished and that version has stopped working. The only thing to do was buy the full version from the Mac app store while it is available at 20% off the  full price. As a credible alternative to Photoshop  I personally think it is £29.99 well spent. No cloud to have to use and pay for like Photoshop, just a one off payment for a versatile photo processing program which will no doubt keep improving for some time to come.

Friday at the Flicks - Blue Tits + Goldfinches

A couple of short videos to go with previous reports.

The young Blue Tits:



The visiting Goldfinches:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.


FLICKR's newly added headers and footers to photos.

If, like me, you dislike the 'new improved' look of photos that Flickr have introduced with their embedded code then HERE is the place to make your views felt. Dislike is very much an understatement of how I felt when I saw how distracting and ugly this innovation looks.

Here is an example of the new look:
 

Fortunately it is possible to strip out the offending code but when you post many photos it becomes an annoying chore.

Goldfinches

Recently nature watching has had to be done between daily short sharp bouts of:
(it may take a short while to load the gif)




There was a time when I had a dozen or more Goldfinches visiting at once.
These days their visits are much rarer so it was great to spot these two:




The rain GIF was made from a video clip using 'GIF Maker Tool', a Mac app.