Pond Life '12 - Pt 1

I wasn't sure whether to make this one from the Frogblog series or open up this years Pond Life. In the end, I went for the latter as there were a couple of additions other than frogs to tell you about.

With Spring here now and temperatures elevated, activity has sprung to life with a bang.

In fact, on inspection tonight, there were three froggy couples busy, and as bold as brass in the middle of the pond, on the surface a threesome really didn't have a care about me shining a torch on them. How rude!!

But last nights inspection revealed more life. Five Smooth Newts were showing well, and tonight it was eight, so they have woken from their winter slumbers too.

In addition, it was great to see an active larva of a Broad Bodied Chaser moving around. With this being the fourth season of life, I am hoping for some emergence of these wonderful dragonfly's in May time, which I hope to bring you in pixel.

I will listen out later on this evening for the frog chorus as their nightly songs get under way.

Martin

Pond Life pt 3 - Adult Red Damselfly

With the the warm weather and only a relatively short passage of time, damselflies quickly mature into mating adults.  We had plenty visiting us over the last weekend, so I thought I would share a few with you here on today's blog

Dave did a blog quite some time ago about the effects of different backgrounds and on these images you have either the choice of the green foliage or the dark water of the pond surface (with associated blobs of duckweed show through)

 I prefer the more subtle tones of the greens, but the stronger contrast of the dark water does show the colours of the insect more prominently.

It is always worth experimenting with your subjects.

We have now started to see the first of the Azure Damsels so I will look forward to getting some images of those and also the shapes that the mating pairs make.

Martin

Pond Life pt 2 - Metamorphosis of a Large Red Damselfly

In Part 1 of this series, I said I would bring you a series of the emergence of a Large Red Damselfly.  Since then, they have continued to emerge at a rate of between five and eight per day until yesterday when there were no new ones, although we are now seeing the matured early emergent back around the pond and starting to mate.

This series of images were taken over a period of about forty minutes, with the damsel staying on the leaf warming for a further hour or so before it finally flew.

 Just emerging, tail still in its case and umbilicals still connected

 Finallly free

 Body starting to straighten

 Tail beginning to extend

 Wings beginning to pump out

 More wing extension, now level with tail

 More wing expansion

 Wings now fully formed

 Tail now extended

Now fully formed and moving round to the sunny side to warm up

As you can see from the exposures the light was variable with either full sun or part cloud.  Images were taken with the Canon 5Dmk2, Canon 180 f3.5L macro, using the live view facility and resting on a beanbag on the pond edge.

Martin

Pond Life - Part 1 - New life emerges

With other activities than just frogs in my pond, I will bring the Pond Life series this year with the comings and goings of anything that could be considered 'non-frog'.

With the activity in the garden a couple of weeks or so earlier than last year, I was expecting the first of the Damselflies to emerge over this last week, and I haven't been disappointed.  The first started to emerge on Wednesday and we have seen between five and eight on everyday.  Although on Sunday, there should have been at least one more but one of the frogs grabbed it before it could get up the plant stem to emerge.

I have also seen four empty cases of Broad Bodied Chaser in the water but have not seen any emerge so I am wondering if they have been sucked empty by the frogs look for a succulent meal.

Anyway, I took as series of images on Friday morning that show the damsel as it emerges from the case with a series of its growth as the wings and body expand as it pumps the fluids through its body to become fully formed.  but I will bring you those images later in the week..

On Saturday morning as I was about to start work on the next phase of the pond, I saw a damsel that had just emerged and was beautifully back lit.  It was slightly too far away in the middle of the water to use just the 180 macro with the 5D so I needed to add some focal length.  One of the beauties of the Canon 180 macro is that you can add the 1.4 EFTC  - not something you can do with the other macro lenses  (Note: Not sure if you can with the new 100 so that may not be totally correct)

So with the body/lens set up, all that remained was to get the bean bag supported on the pond edge on a large plank so it could overhang the water and get busy.

Once again, the live view facility came into it's own.

 

Large Red Damselfly

As you can see it is still forming, and at this stage the wings are fully formed but the body has a long way to pump out to full size.  You will be able to see this better when I bring the full series later in the week.

With the strong back light, the background goes to black, or very nearly anyway.

After a while, the sun popped behind a cloud for a short while, and this is the result.

Quite nice, but not in the same league as the back lit version, in my opinion.

Martin

Pond Life Part 6 - Egg laying

Last year, back in September, I shared images from the pond showing Southern Hawkers egg laying.

So it was with some surprise that I watched another one back in July this year doing the same.

Here she is, on the same log as the one used  last year in the middle of the pond. I watched from quite a distance to begin with, but she was clearly occupied and very comfortable with my presence around her.

I got quite a few shots on various poses.  This one with the 7D and Canon 180 macro, at ISO1600 with f9 and 1/320 sec shutter speed, taken hand held laying on the ground.  Image is full frame.

This time from above to show the wing spread. Back down to ISO400, full frame

Finally right in close.  Now I normally really don't like these type of tight crops, with limited depth of field, but I am pretty happy with this as a study of the fascinating compound eye that these wonderful creatures have.  Again full frame, but with f14, and 1/160 sec this time.

Martin

Pond Life Part 5 - The Hunter and the Hunted

There has been huge amounts of activity around the pond this week, and I will bring more details of that in the future.  But todays blog is about a little story that I watched unfold in front of me yesterday.

It had been another day of landscaping in the garden in intense heat, so any excuse to stop and take photos was welcomed.  I noticed a White butterfly resting on a small bit of sodden log that I have in the pond.  So grabbing the 7D and 180 macro, I tried to get some images.  I could see that it was busy using it's proboscis to probe into the wood to drink or take some other form of food.

Green Veined White (second brood)

I also could see a little bit of movement out of the corner of my eye just across the pond

The Frog slowly worked it's way closer and closer before the White could see the threat and cleared off. So with that I got back to my digging.

Martin

Pond Life Part 4 - More mating and mature colours

In Pond Life Part 3, I bought you mating Large Reds and the first Common Blue  Azure Damsel that we had seen emerge in the garden pond.

Well the Common Blues Azure Damselflies are now matured and mating as you can see below

Slightly lower POV and the female has put her abdomen deeper into the water, risking attack from the Newts

The Duckweed has been multiplying at a great rate, and I am skimming some off every few days to ensure that there is some clear water available, at least for the Pond Skaters to skate.

In addition to this mating pair, I also got a couple of full frame studies each of the Large Red male in beautiful full mature colours and an Common Blue Azure male.

All with the 7D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro, processed in Capture One V5.1 and Photoshop CS5.

Slightly further away from home, about a mile anyway, I got some great images of male and female Banded Demoiselle eating Mayfly so will post those up for you soon.

As promised I said I would give you a break from the North Uist trip reports to cover off some of my local wildlife.

In my next post, I will bring you some of this years Orchids.  Some are still quite early and some are out quite well, but I did get three different species on Saturday so will share those, before we get back to some more Scottish wildlife.

Update: What I thought were Common Blue Damsels are in fact Azure Damselflies.  I posted a couple of these images on here and had the ID corrected.  Must get myself a better book

Martin

Pond Life Part 3 - Mating and New Arrivals

I recieved at text while I was at work yesterday telling me that the Large Red Damselflies were now mating.  'Get some shots then please' I said.

So with that Jac set about getting a few images that I have borrowed here with her permission.

Full frame, no crop, Canon 7D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro

Messy background, but an intersting balancing act over the Lilly Pads

Apparently, just a few minutes after this shot was taken, a male Smooth Newt grabbed the female, the lower Damselfly, dragged it under water and eat it.  Nature is cruel.  There were just a pair of gossamer wings left on the pond surface when I got home.

Yesterday was really hot here in Warwickshire and we got up to about 24 deg C.  This has resulted in the next species of damsel now emerging.  The Blues are now making there appearance, and here is a freshly emerged one, shot contra jour, yet to develop its full colour.

These flies were emerging and flying away very quickly.  The heat has made a big difference to them when comapred to the Large Reds.

While I am writing, I can give early notice of our next guest photographer, Chris Jones.  Chris's slot will be published next Thursday 29th May, so make sure you drop by.  It is a great blogpost.

Martin

Pond Life Pt 2 - There be monsters

As I mentioned in Pond Life Pt 1 a couple of days ago, I said I would bring you some damselfly images.

After I reported this image above, the first of the Large Red's in the garden this year, there were a couple more the following day.

This one had been out for a few hours, and was still pumping up its wings.  If you look at them, you will see that they are quite mis-shapen at this point still.

This got me thinking that there should be the larva nymphs or naiads somewhere.  So after a hunt round the pond edges,  a number of empty cases like this were located

If you look closely you will see the severed umbilical fronds - the orange cylinders .  But this was just an empty shell.  The live damselfly was not on the same stem.

But a couple of stems away, on the Marsh Marigolds we found this full formed Large Red Damselfly.  Now given that it hasn't fully coloured up, I am not going to hazard a guess as to the sexing of it, but if anybody who is a specific expert can confirm then that would be great.  My knowledge of these is such that I can identify the sex when they have reached colouration after a few days.

The following morning I checked the pond first thing and found my first live 'monster from the deep'.

I watched as the nymph climbed up the stem of the plant and started twitching as the emergence began.

 

About three hours later it was looking like this as it slowly warmed and pumped the blood and fluids round its body.

This one took a full 48 hours to fly.  I think the cold weather over the weekend held back the metamorphosis, as once it got some warm sun on it on Monday afternoon it made good progress and flew.

I now need to look out for the next species, which I will expect with be the Blues.

The little pond has a lot of Caddisfly larva working their way round the bottom, hidden in their leaf or stick homes, so I will watch their progress with continued interest.

Thanks to Jac for the third and fourth images

Martin

Pond Life pt 1 - A day late

Mayflies are supposed to turn up on the 1st of May.  Well they all popped out in the pond yesterday, 24hours late, which I will put down to the cold weather, so will forgive them.

I first noticed one today beneath the water when I was checking out the tadpoles, and then a few seconds later I saw one on the surface. 

While taking the photos, laying down in the wet clover, more and more were coming out.  They were either finding their way on to surfaces out of the water or remaining onthe water surface.

I have catalogued them today photographically as another day in the life of the pond.

This was the first hatched Mayfly I saw, climbing up the Flag Iris

This one was skating around on the surface, driven by the wind.

This one had taken refuge on a small piece of decaying log in the pond.

I liked the simplicity of this image

All of these images were taken with the 7D and Canon 180 macro, and used flash as it was so dark out there today.  Flash was either the on-board, or the on-board + 580EX that the 7D wirelessly triggered.

I am expecting to get planty more exciting images from the pond this year, so will be titling them Pond Life.  In my next installment, I will show the transition of Large Red Damselflies from the naiad or nymph stage through to the ready for take of stage.

Martin