Wildlife Photography across the Water: Local Patch

Sunday 2 August 2009

Local Patch - Quick garden update

Once again dodgy weather and decorating needs restrict getting out and about to the garden, but what a day it has been. First decent warm and sunny one for a while really did bring out the butterfly again, plus a few others.

I took a tea break from plastering sat in the garden and was amazed at the numbers I saw. I counted up to about 50 either in the air or sat down all over the place. In fact some individual rocks were getting overcrowded with Painted Ladies So we have had Large and Small Whites, plus Green Veined in abundance, tens and tens of Ladies, many Peacocks, plus a Common Blue, Speckled Wood and a Comma. Each of the last three avoided the gaze of my lens.

There were also numerous ladybirds, plus a number of hoverflies different varieties followed by a very close encounter with a female Southern Hawker. I took the camera up to the pond to get an image but was blessed with her just flying around me at very close quarters as she was 'hawking' for food. It was a privilege to watch at such close quarters.

As you will see from the images below, the Painted Ladies just do not seem to care where they land. One seemed very happy in the bird feeder tray.

Small White on Buddleia

Peacock

Painted Lady on the rocks (good name for a cocktail)

Painted Lady and a Comma, showing the white trademark 'comma' on the undersides

Painted Lady on bird seed tray

Hoverflies - erm? well sort of busy

Well it looks like the Canon 180 f3.5L macro lens has been used more than any other lens this year so far. I synchronised my image library in Adobe Lightroom v2 on Saturday and checking the metadata attributes, the 180 macro now has over 1500 shots taken with it, followed closely behind by the 500 with the 1.4 converter attached.

Right - off for some more guitar practice now. Some of you from CFF forum will know what I am on about.

Martin

2 comments:

Unknown3 August 2009 at 19:50
Great photos! I love macro photography.
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WPATW3 August 2009 at 21:47
Hi Diane,

Many thanks for your kind comments, and welcome to our blog

Martin
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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.