Frog Blog '11 - Part 4 - A Frog's Moon

As I mentioned in my last post, they have finally started to spawn.  Well in just 24 hours we went from just the four clumps I previously mentioned to 28 clumps, beating last years total already, and they are still at it.  

It is going to be a busy year in the garden with mini frog traffic if they make it.  Which leads mean to my next tale.

Tonight is going to the brightest moon for two decades apparently according to this story.  Here in Stratford we were blessed with clear skies so I popped outside with the camera and got this image.

With the 7D, 500f4 + 1.4 on tripod, ISO 100, f9 and 1/125 if you fancy a go.  I pulled the expose back in Capture One, reduced the brightness and upped the contrast to explore some of the wonderful detail.

With this level of natural brightness, I have seen more detail from this image than many other similar type shots.

Click to see it at 800 pixels

Why last night and not tonight? - well it might not be clear tonight so worth getting it in the bank as it were.

But check it out in your area of the world and give it a crack - as it will be the brightest now for a long time to come.

So linking back to my earlier question about whether the new frogs make it.  Well it was crystal clear last night and we had another sharpish frost with temperatures down to minus 4.5 Deg C this morning when I went out at 6 AM looking for Hares locally.

Some of the spawn is exposed to the air and was a little bit crunchy when I got back, so I swilled some pond water over it to warm it up.  Fingers crossed.

Checking back to last year, they were at a similar stage on the 28th March, so we are ahead by ten days this year.  It took a further 12 days before we had swimmers, so on that basis we should be looking at the end of March before the first tadpoles emerge.

I am off on an Amphibian Surveying Workshop later today with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to brush up on my knowledge and learn a few things.

Hope you have a good weekend

Martin

Butterfly Week and a bit of catch up

In my last post I mentioned it was Big Butterfly Count Week.  Well by way of linking to that post and also catching up with some of the images I took back in June, I thought I would share these with you for a little inspiration for you to get out there and join in the count.....well maybe.

Meadow Brown

Male Common Blue

Marbled White

Copulating 5 spot Burnet moths with exuvia

Copulating 5 Spot Burnet Moths on Common Spotted orchid

All with 5D and Canon 180 macro, handheld or supported on bean bag on the late evening sunlight at a location about three miles from my home in Warwickshire

Martin

Local Patch - catching up 2

A short while after we got back from North Uist, we went down to the River Avon in Stratford as I expected to see Banded Demoiselle.  We went disappointed - there were hundreds of them, along with Blue and Azure Damsels.

The male Banded Demoiselles were the easiest to see initially, as there wing patches 'strobed' as they flew,  It was still quite warm at the time, and so it wasn't that easy to get settled subjects.

The females are also beautifully coloured, but without the black wing patches.  I caught this one eating an unlucky Mayfly.

 

A few seconds later and no wings left on the supper

All taken handheld with the 5D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro lens.

The first image looks a little soft at small size so it is worth a click to see at full size

Martin

Garden Update - A quickie

Last month, Jac and I spent a fairly pleasant day at Gardeners World Show at the NEC  in Birmingham, looking at various garden stuff and plants.  A couple of the plant stands were selling seed grown native British orchids. Well regular readers will know that I enjoy photographing orchids so it didn't take too much temptation to get a delightful little Dactylorhiza species to bring home and plant.  It was sold to me as a Southern Marsh orchid, but I had my suspicions.

Well anyway after a few weeks we had this beautiful little Common Spotted Orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii come into bloom in amongst the long grasses.  It is just starting to go over in this picture but this is a big as it got, so no quite up to some of the wild species we have that grow locally, but just a few steps from my back door so that is OK by me.

Martin

Local Patch - Common Blue Butterflies

In my post yesterday, I mentioned that it was early June when the Common Blue had just taken to the wing.  Well I was only a month out - those images were taking a month after they had really taken to the wing, and were in full mating mode.  Today's pictures were the ones I got when they had first emerged and were taken before we went to North Uist at the beginning of May.

These images were of a number of different individuals, but wanted to share a photographic study of different compositions, plants and angles.

These were among the first images I took on the new 'old' 5D and with the fabulous Canon 180f3.5L macro lens.  Let us know which if the styles shown here you like best and why?

Martin

Local Patch - catching up

May, June and July have been very busy months for me photographically.  As you will have seen by my posts these days, macro or at least close up photography, to be more technically accurate, is one of my favourite genres.  These last three months have been wonderful in the garden, around the pond and at my local patch.  So much so, that I have many blog posts worth of images that I haven't shared with you.

So going back to the start of June, Jac and I took a trip to our local patch to check out the progress of the various orchids there, and had some great sightings of moths and butterflies when we were there.

On a warm and still evening, we timed it to perfection as it had clearly been the turn of the Common Blue butterflies to take to the wing.  I gave up counting when I got to 100, and being very fresh, they were not inclined to clear off when you got too close to them.

Common Blue (female)

Common Blue pair (male on top)

Burnet Moth Caterpillar

Cinnabar Moth

Dingy Skipper Butterfly

Lattice Heath Moth

All of these were taken with the 5D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro lens, generally with a bean bag or hand held.

I do miss the live view and self cleaning sensor on the 'old' model, but do love the full frame DOF effects that you get compared to the 1.6 or 1.3 crop bodies.  

Maybe I should have stock sale and get the newer 5Dmk2, before they go and bring out a new one and ramp the price up disproportionately.....again.

Martin

Great weekend for Bluebells

Back in this post, I mentioned that the weekend past would be about the best for Bluebells.....and it was, at least here in Warwickshire.

Saturday was cold wet and windy, but Sunday dawned brightly - perhaps too brightly at times.   But a beautiful English Bluebell wood nevertheless.

Anyway, no particular story today, just a load of images for you.  All taken with the 'new' old 5D and either the Canon 24-70f2.8L or the 300f4 IS L + 1.4EFTC.  I really did miss the Live View feature that my newer 1Dmk111 and 7D have for the closer shots

Finally the walk out after a a couple of miles of bluebells, with the first Cuckoo of the year calling to us.

It was good to bump into a few old friends from Stratford Photo Group, and to chat to another couple of photographers who turned out to be neighbours from just up the road.  It was good to meet and chat

Martin

Local Patch - a few recent sightings

Just a short one from me today.

Winter has finally arrived in Warwickshire this last week with a hard frost or two, although with the continuing gales and rain it still feels more like autumn.

Regular winter thrushes are coming in to the garden now with daily regular visits from Redwings. I had the pleasure of watching one bathing in my pond this week. Fieldfares are less common in the urban environment, but I have already seen many very large flocks out in the surrounding fields.

I certainly had an exciting sighting last weekend with a Kingfisher flying within a couple of meters of me while I was by the Rowing Club in Stratford, feeding the birds. Great to see one in the town environment. Also the Grey Wagtail is quite a regular sighting now in the same area.

Large flocks of Black headed gulls are now also resident in the town around the river as they have moved inland from their summer sites.

It is also great to see the regular flock of Long tail tits in the garden and had the pleasure of watching them about three meters from me while eating my breakfast.

So I have put the hide back up in the garden now and looking forward to getting out there again when the weather is kind to the birds and they are in the right places at the right times for me.

Martin

Local Patch - Damselflies

I mentioned that I had been seeing Large Red and Common Blue Damsels over my main pond a few posts back. I have also been watching Blue Tailed today and also saw my first Emperor Dragonfly over the garden too. Which brings me to the main part of today's post.

I went back to the Orchid site that is about 3 miles from my house. I had planned to write a tutorial showing the different effects when shooting in bright light on the Bee Orchids, using diffusers and also fill flash, but have chosen to share these with you instead, as I was pleased to get these today.

I had been getting a few shots of Common Spotted Orchids and noticed an abundance of these, so on went the 180 macro.

Common Blue Damselfly - Immature Female

Common Damselfly - Male

Common Blue Damselfly - Male

So look out for the tips and techniques on the lighting at another time. Oh yes and by the way, there are downs of Bee Orchids out now - so I was very happy.

Plus a really useful link to a web resource here on Damsels and Dragonflies

Martin

Local Patch - My garden, Warwickshire

Well having travelled over 1200 miles when I went to Mull last week, I though it was time to reduce the personal carbon footprint a little, although getting over 50mpg from my EU4 diesel engine I may forgiven for being a little smug. Anyway, I have spent a fair bit of time doing some garden maintenance as I had let it go a bit, but it was remarkable just how much life there is out there now.

Overhead the swifts are screaming, and while cutting back some growth yesterday I heard the distinctive 'cronk' of a Raven, there are plenty of Small White butterflies coming through and I saw my first Green Veined White in the garden yesterday.

The tadpoles are going crazy, forming up in large shoals in the shallows warming themselves. There are at least three newts, Common I think, but will check soon.

On the bug front, there are masses of Hoverflies, many bee species, Green Shield Bug, large Red and also Blue Damselflies now in.

The first picture shows the mass of Ox Eye daisies that have sprung up. This particular patch was supposed to be quite short in height but is over a metre high now, but looks fabulous in a breeze as it sways. There are also a number of fabulous blue Cornflowers coming through as well, as per the second image.

The final three were of a very obliging frog that came up to say hello. I was surprised how yellow its markings are. There are at least three like this with the rest being the usual much darker green/brown colour.

Finally, I had a brilliant day out today with the Warwickshire branch of the Butterfly Conservation Trust, and met some great people. Thanks to Mike, Keith and Val for making me welcome - the site is brilliant, I saw 18 species, including a number of first for me. The food was brilliant to so thanks again. I will post some images from that trip later in the week.

Martin

Views - Some days are just no good

Dave wrote a great post a couple of weeks ago titled Purple Days. Well sometimes you get the reverse of purple days - well at least I did today photographically.

As per Good Friday, or should I say crappy light Friday, the light again today was awful, and you just know that it is not worth getting the camera out of the bag.

I took a trip around some of the locations in the northern part of Warwickshire to Lea Marston trying to find some Black Necked Grebes that were reported on Birdguides. But drew a blank there - saw lots of other great sites - none of them close enough or indeed in the preferred position to photograph. Loads of Warblers - Willow, Blackcap and Reed. Plenty of Great Crested Grebes - even doing the weed dance. Great through the binocs but just not near enough.

So onto the next location, Brandon Marsh - again plenty there - Snipe, Little Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover, Greylag, Barnacle, White Front (lonesome) and Canada Geese. Plenty of wildfowl as well. A couple of Sparrow Hawk. More warblers - as before plus Sedge and Cettis. House and Sand Martins, plus Swallows.

So what with that lot, plus Kestrel, Buzzard and a couple of Sparrowhawk any birder should be pretty happy - and I was too.

But no images!!

I always tell myself philosophically that I go out to watch wildlife and if I get an image then I consider it a bouns. Sometimes I really wonder if I mean that - today was no exception

But...........but there will be better days ahead. I have checked out two great butterfly and wildflower sites, so will look forward to that as the season progresses :-)

Martin