And what is Life? - An hour-glass on the run

A frustrating week with good weather only sporadic and opportunities to get out and burn pixels rarely coinciding with those small pockets of chance... Houses still need to be found, phone calls made and letters written. On top of that Quinn had this Friday off so the week was curtailed... It is now half term... will I get out? Who can tell... The good news is that another job came in - a quote from March was finally answered in the affirmative...

Photographically I continue on my various projects... the main one is to record common flora and fauna in an attractive way and encourage people to take a fresh look around them. Many of the species I photograph are all around us, we brush past them when out walking and never give them a second glance. Yet these species are survivors; they are successful colonists of habitats and niches that we share on a day to day basis... have a look at my pictures and take another look... they are as worthwhile as any species...

So what have I been shooting? Well I started with a trip up to Scarborough, North Yorkshire to visit Mum and Dad and whilst there we had a trip to Forge Valley NNR - a delightful remnant of ancient woodland sited in a river valley with steep sides... The ground was a carpet of wild garlic and bird song filled the air...

Spring woodland...

wild garlic (Allium ursinum)

Along the paths a mix of plants, the most obvious...

greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) - one of my favourite woodland plants... and along the river banks...

pendulous sedge (Carex pendula).

Now I shall digress into a bit photography speak here... whilst shooting in the woodland I was under bright sun. This coupled with the dense shadows cast by trees leads to excessive contrast - tricky to meter for.  When shooting in these conditions I tend to use a diffuser. This is a large circular disk covered with a translucent material. This spreads the light over the subject, removing the harshness...I hand hold the diffuser close to the plant producing the lighting I am looking for. Compare the picture above of the sedge.. taken with diffuser in place, with the one below... with no diffuser...

 
The difference in lighting is marked. Some people may like the second version, that is personal preference...

So, a good trip even though the paths were awash with dog mess - thanks dog owners...

A couple of days later I slipped into the garden...

another of the hoverflies (Eristalis spp.) I think... this one is having a pollen moment!

and

a study of lesser trefoil (Trifolium dubium) - a delightful little member of the the clover family. I bet you have seen it, walked on it, cursed it and ignored it... take another look...

When waiting to pick up my little boy from school, I have found a footpath, lined with vegetation that is a great place for invertebrate subjects - species that are around us all the time, never given a second look...like these...

green fly on nettle flower...

greenbottle... love the eye colour...

small tortoiseshell butterfly caterpillar on nettle...

long-jawed spider... showing its fangs...

malachite beetle...

mirid bug...

It's fascinating what you can find when you look...

What else has happened?  Well a couple of job confirmations came in for later in the year... which is good news... I am doing a dragonfly survey on Wicken Fen this year so I had the livestock awareness training he other day, which was interesting - how to read the behavioral signs of a highland cattle bull etc...also very informative...all that and an excellent meeting with Quinn's teachers to boot

All my comings and goings can be found here and if you don't Facebook they can be seen here so don't be shy... have a look...

I hope you all have a great week; and I shall see you all again here, next week...

TTFN

Another from the swinging blossom...

What a great week I have had photographically wise... the sun has been warm and finally plants and insects have joined forces in a riot of vernal exultation... I have been shooting on the fen, in an ancient meadow and an old woodland; I have had a booking confirmed for July and finally it seems we have found a house to live in... one that will be great in which for Quinn to grow... and it has a swimming pool... Midsummer Party anyone?

The week started with a meeting at Wicken Fen NNR where I am to conduct a dragonfly survey this summer - a pleasant walk along the lodes yielded my first Odonata species of the year and some nice images...

Large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) - newly emerged - what a great colour...

a leaf beetle... still more great colour...

Red-eyed damselfly (Erythromma najas) - this is a teneral example - which means it is newly emerged and as yet hasn't developed any pigmentation... when adult the males spend their time sitting on floating vegetation, and yes their eyes are a similar colour to the body of the large red damselfly... very striking...

another teneral red-eyed damselfly... I love the way they just skulk in the undergrowth...

In addition to invertebrates there are plants of course... this is a water crowfoot (Ranunculus omiophyllus) - a member of the buttercup family; they grow in and on water and many have two different forms of leaves - one set strap-like and submerged and the other entire and floating... a great little group of plants and worth looking for when you are near pollution free water bodies...

One of my favourite plants - water violet (Hottonia palustris). Its leaves are submerged but in the spring the plant throws up these beautiful spikes of pale mauve flowers...

And that made a great start to the week...On the Tuesday, thanks to a tip from a friend I sought out a local nature reserve and SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and went in the search for orchids...

orchid meadow...

Green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio) - an orchid of old, unimproved meadows, which are sadly becoming a thing of the past...however, on this site near Ely the site is full of them!

A bit of a play in Lightroom yielded this... I like the dream-like quality of this shot...

A selection of close-ups of individual flower heads...

Also captured in the meadow...

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) and creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens) - I loved the juxtaposition of these two plants plus the great bokeh of my Tokina macro lens...

Whilst processing this image I found this small detail and was taken by the shapes and colours...

Common vetch... standard plant portrait... Don't you just love the colour here and the shape? Lovely plant...

Could the week get any better? Well I wandered out into the garden and found these...

A ladybird larva...

A sloe bug (Dolycoris baccarum) - great colours, shapes and form... wildlife is just brilliant!

After that...well I paid a visit to the Devil's Dyke... a Saxon earth works and now a SSSI for its chalk grassland... great site - loads of potential for later in the year... but last week I captured...

Common blue (Polyommatus icarus) - don't you just love the blues...

Mother Shipton (Callistege mi) - a day flying moth - so named as the pattern on the wing is said to resemble the profile of a well known witch... I'm sure more images from the site will follow...

Did it end there? Nah... weather was much too good, so I went back to the fen on Friday - looking for dragonflies and anything else really...

Cardinal beetle...

                           Froghopper...

Glow-worm (larva) a new species for me...

                     Soldier beetle...

           Wasp beetle...

In addition I have had some insurance claim shoots in this week and a booking confirmed for July...it would e nice to keep those coming in...

I think I will leave it at that... this weekend's jaunts will be in next weeks edition... but you can keep up HERE or HERE but I hope you enjoyed these images as much as I enjoyed taking them...

TTFN...

All nature laughs, the groves are fresh and fair...

A frustrating week to say the least... weather has not been kind to a Natural History photographer for one thing... and I have been tearing around Cambridgeshire looking at houses - the two combined mean I have had little chance to take any pictures... A trip to Sutton Hoo last Sunday followed by a visit to London have been the highlights - and the only photo opportunities - apologies for the sparsity of images this week... I hope the quality is OK for you all...

So... where to start...? Well, the highlight was the trip to Sutton Hoo in Suffolk - known for its remarkable treasure - Saxon Lord burial mounds, the site is also great for natural history; indeed the best part of the day out for me was looking at the burial mounds whilst listening to both nightingale and turtle dove singing simultaneously...

So, do you remember the good old days of film?  We'd go out with our Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus or Pentax (the big 5 as was) and shoot away on print or if you were serious about the image slide film; and spring woods might come out like this...

do you remember? Colours a bit washed out... maybe focus a tad out... well with the new technology we can do a bit better... mainly because we can chimp (check the image on the screen immediately) and adjust settings accordingly... so now we can get this...

or even...

an English bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) wood... I have wanted to take this sort of shot for a while... I had 10 minutes at Sutton Hoo and managed these...(the top one has been processed to show the way old film used to come out BTW...).  I love the intensity of the blue and green, the shadows beneath the trees helps the richness and saturation of the hues.

Lurking amongst the bluebells are...

Pink campion (Silene dioica) - one of my favourite spring plants... This is part of my attempt to slowly photograph our native flora... maybe to show them in a slightly different way; to draw attention to the common place rather than the rare... a fascinating project for the coming years...so keep a look out HERE or HERE for regular postings...

Of course the thing that the site of known for is the amazing Saxon treasure... and most strikingly... this...

the helmet of a Saxon lord or possibly king... it is one of my favourite objects... it is beautiful and threatening at the same time... it is our version of...

whilst Tutankhamen's death mask is extraordinary in its golden extravagance... the Saxon helmet of Sutton Hoo just knocks it into a cocked hat...

The family house was also fascinating, complete with period furniture and artifacts...

and that wraps up Sutton Hoo... - the day after (Sunday) we went down the London... Lucy and Quinn went to the Tate Modern for the Matisse exhibition and I had a wander around on the south bank...

a selection of London images...

Millennium Bridge and Thames beach...

The Shard... tallest building in the UK, with Tower Bridge in the distance and The Globe Theater front right...

People enjoying a walk along the South Bank...

St Paul's Cathedral dome... with the London School in front...

Millennium Footbridge with St Paul's beyond...

Some of the people down there also caught my eye..

chilling...

The peanut seller...

The photographer...

Many feet...

and the odd phenomenon of adding "love" padlocks to bridges...


So, after the bank holiday and houses to view I had little chance with my Nikons... apart from a few grabbed shots in the garden...

a few studies of garden columbine... as you can see I have been experimenting with a new processing tool - called Perfect Effect 8 - it works as a stand alone or plug-in to Lightroom and Photoshop and is another tool; it gives me slightly different effects... I like it but will try not to over use it...!!! I have also been having some fun in Photoshop during the evenings...

I like the effects here - give a dream-like quality to the images... indeed the first one would make interesting wallpaper... (?)

And that about finishes off the week... more house hunting this weekend so let's hope we find somewhere so I can get back to shooting...

Hope you all have a great week,

TTFN