Wordless Wednesday

Orange Swift Moth
My grateful thanks to The Weaver of Grass and Glennis for the identification

Sun Day

In reality this was taken last Tuesday when the temperature here reached 28.4C according to my weather records. Though the sky was mainly blue there was a fair amount of whispy white cloud to be seen. In spite of that the solar filter I use on the camera seemed to cut through enough to show Sunspot 2579 which can be seen near the centre:



Again on Friday there was another opportunity while the sky seemed virtually cloudless:



This time I think Sunspot 2580 is just about visible towards 5 o'clock and 2581 towards 8 o'clock.

Yesterday evening was not one of Penny's favourites when a change in the weather brought heavy rain and thunder storms. Fortunately we were near the edge of the storms which moved through South Lincolnshire, the Wash and North Norfolk.

Friday at the Flicks: Above and Below a Snail

This is something I have been wanting to film for quite a while and was in the way of an experiment. I couldn't find a spare piece of glass to film through from underneath so ended up with a section of clear plastic which I cleaned up as best I could. This was the rough and ready set up in the kitchen:



Fortunately the monitor screen on the 70D can be flipped round which enabled me to see what the camera could see without having to stand on my head. It took longer to find a snail than it did to set up and film. A few days ago, after heavy rain, I couldn't move for them covering the paths. The day I chose for the experiment was hot and I had to look under endless pots and stones before finding one.

The 70D was used to film from underneath and I used the pocket Nikon hand held to film from above:



Sparkly bits are just reflections of the lighting.
The sound track is 'Stale Mate' by Jingle Punks from the YouTube Audio Library.
When I find a piece of glass I will have another go at this as the plastic was still a bit misty which blurred the fine detail but you can see the 'foot' rippling as it moves forwards.

The Garden Dragon

Wednesday I spent a very pleasant three quarters of an hour watching a Migrant Hawker Dragonfly as it hunted round my garden, every so often stopping to rest, always on the same leaf:



Many dragons are not afraid of people. It would often fly within a few feet of my head as it zoomed round looking for its next meal. Unfortunately never hovering in one place long enough to give me the chance of a flight shot.

Wordless Wednesday

Garden Snail

Moonday

Recently there have been some very clear evenings so I took the opportunity to take an up-to-date photo of the Moon:

A Friday Flutter

Lots of Peacock butterflies around at the moment feeding on next door's Buddleia or just resting and soaking up the Sun's heat: