Category Archives: nature photography

Getting up close

17 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by in insects, nature photography

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I mostly use my Olympus camera for macro photographs, and to get crisp shots I need to get within an inch or two of the subject. As you can imagine, a lot of little creatures are alarmed by a large animal looming over them with a camera so, from time to time, I use one of my daily walks to practise my stealth. After a couple of false starts yesterday, I was very pleased to get up close to these three butterflies – a Common blue, a Meadow brown and a Speckled wood – as the macro photos give such good detail of the anatomy of these beautiful butterflies.

210817 common blue210817 meadow brown210817 speckled wood

Here be dragons

10 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in insects, nature, nature photography, parks

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This is Wales. We have dragons!
More specifically, this was Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on day 10 of #30DaysWild, where I managed to find three different species of dragonfly.

180610 Black-tailed skimmer immature male

An immature male Black-tailed skimmer

180610 Broad-bodied chaser male

A mature male Black-tailed skimmer

180610 Emperor female (1)

Above and below, a female Emperor, ovipositing (i.e. egg-laying)

180610 Emperor female (2)

180610 Four-spotted chaser (1)

As above, so below: Four-spotted chasers

180610 Four-spotted chaser (2)

Practising stealth

07 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in insects, nature, nature photography

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For day 7 of #30DaysWild I decided to spend a couple of hours practising my stealth tactics during a walk along the coastal path from Penarth to Lavernock. Sometimes I photograph wildlife with my DSLR camera but I also have a point-and-shoot camera with a macro feature that is good for capturing close-up detail. The only trouble is that you need to get the camera as close as possible to your subject – and I am talking close – no more than a couple of inches away. As you might imagine, this tends to freak out and frighten off a lot of creatures, but I find that if I approach slowly, watch the light and shadow, make no noise, then I can often get very close. Here are the ones I didn’t freak out or frighten off today. I think I did quite well.

Decorative bunting

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in birds, nature, nature photography

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‘Are you looking for outdoor bunting?’ read the ad in the local newspaper.

170819 Reed bunting (1)

Well, no, actually, I was outdoors looking for Spotted flies – this rather handsome Reed bunting was an added bonus!

170819 Reed bunting (2)

It did look a little out of place, sitting in a leafy tree amongst a long row of leafy trees, rather than in or very near the reed beds around the lakes.

170819 Reed bunting (3)

But it was certainly a very decorative addition to my afternoon’s birdwatching.

170819 Reed bunting (4)

A riot of butterflies

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in insects, nature, nature photography

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The Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) is supposed to be quite a common butterfly but I’d only seen two this year until this morning’s butterfly fest at Cardiff Bay, in a tucked-away spot full of Buddleja, Ragwort, Hemp agrimony and other assorted wildflowers.

The nectar bonanza was being licked up by four Painted ladies, two Red admirals, one Small white, two Meadow browns, and two Common blues. What a riot of colour they made!

Chasing the chasers

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by in insects, nature, nature photography

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It’s dragonfly time!

170604 Broad-bodied chasers (1)

Just when the birds disappear behind the trees’ leafy boughs, the dragonflies emerge to take their place in Nature’s line-up of masterly aviators.

170604 Broad-bodied chasers (2)

Earlier this week I spent over 30 minutes watching these magnificent Broad-bodied chasers (Libellula depressa), two males circling and defending their territories from each other, keeping watch from their favourite perches, mating with two females, and those females then depositing their eggs amongst the water plants. It was magical!

170604 Broad-bodied chasers (3)

The phenomenal poppy

19 Friday May 2017

Posted by in flowers, nature, nature photography

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170519 poppy

For Floral Friday this week, a most remarkable flower. Did you know
> a single poppy seed head contains 1000 seeds and each plant can have as many as 20 heads?
> of those 20,000 seeds as many as 85% (that’s 17,000) seeds will germinate if conditions are right?
> prior to farmers using chemical weedkillers, a one-acre cornfield could potentially have contained 100 million dormant seeds?

Facts garnered from Richard Mabey, Weeds: How vagabond plants gatecrashed and changed the way we think about nature (Profile Books, London, 2010), a most fascinating read.