Venus Pool - More Arachnophilia

A Green Sandpiper on the middle island was the sum total of interest on the VP bird front so with Yvonne (keen?) to see our eight legged celebrities, a search for the Wasp Spiders was convened.

There's other species on the reserve of course. Some with short legs.






Some with long legs.






and some with long long legs.....






You need to get your eye in! We had walked up the stretch of grass verge favoured by the Wasp Spiders and eventually found one - retracing our steps we found fourteen females! Plus a couple of tiny males cowering nearby!

Here's the typical habitat......






Come into my parlour....






Step a little closer.....






The happy couple? Will you take this very large female to be your.......






Erm.... is that the remains of her last 'fling'?? Or....Phew, maybe it's just the remains of her old 'cast' off body as she gets BIGGER? If so, this is the one time the man in her life can mate without too much fear of being eaten - her jaws may not have hardened off enough! Nervous times though!






Ladies, next time you make love with your husband/partner/boyfriend, please resist the urge to consume him afterwards! It just isn't nice and is likely land you in trouble with the law but for these little creatures it's just part of the 'act'.






On a general note, the British Arachnological Society may have to rethink the 'hardiness' status of this particular species. Survival is clearly not in doubt despite getting through the coldest Winter for years and temperatures plummeting to -14'C. This is one tough little spider......

Next stop Llanymynech cliffs and hopes of a butterfly or two and who knows what birds may be lurking?

Llanymynech - Hummer and Club

A shower or two failed to put a dampener on this 'interesting' session which culminated in two photographic 'firsts'!!
Impressive start on the bird front too with by the far best population of Spotted Flycatcher, I've witnessed before. There were almost certainly double figure birds present and from one vantage point we could be sure of nine individuals! Getting pictures was another matter as they were catching flies (and even butterflies!) quite high up the cliffs and feeding some to youngsters.






A flock of 14 Crossbills calling loudly went over too, what an entry!

Hopes of either Fritillary species weren't helped by the rain but it is late in the season and only hope now is for a second hatch? There were numerous Common Blue with the odd 'brown job' merely female one and the same....






Small Copper were the next most plentiful....






And then Small Heath.....






All this paled into insignificance with the arrival of a fantastic little find, initially seen hovering over the short turf, then zipping here and there from plant to plant - a Hummingbird Hawkmoth! One of nature's perfect little machines, the wings are proven to beat at roughly 80 times per second. Now that's fast and no wonder my initial attempts to photograph the little blighter ended up - occasioanlly 'wingless'!










I opted for shutter priority, always a compromise as the depth of field was soon compromised but at 1/2000 sec, a little bit of wing detail was possible. Please be aware, these are all flight shots, the moth never landed but simply hovered in front of likely sources of nectar.










I say 'likely sources' as not a single image revealed that very long proboscis used to collect nectar whilst hovering (you won't hear me complaing too loudly!)

The Hummer was a photographic first and the second one of the day (about to come) was an even bigger surprise! I've bemoaned not scouring the Severn in May for Common Club-tail and all hope had faded of getting a shot this year. Lucky Jim isn't lucky for nothing and when what I initially though was a Hawker dropped into the grass nearby, I couldn't quite believe my eyes! A pristine female Common Club-tail and true to form, miles away from it's origins! Difficult to see but it actually has a small fly in it's jaws.......






Considering how late it is in the season, this species shouldn't really be in flight still but what a fresh specimen! It flew up in a tree and a few shots using the 500mm lens were possible.....








These images form the final chapter in my quest for Odontata breeding species in Shropshire. You'll have to visit the Shropshire Birder website to check out the Odonata gallery (going live in the next couple of days) for the 25 species of Dragons and Damsels I've seen locally and which have given me so much pleasure, seeking them out this year. If they leave you cold, I'll be back on the trail of birds very soon (when there are some about!)......

Venus Pool - Arachnophilia

Arachnophobes look away! This posting comes with a phobia warning - despite the fact that most of these little arachnids are no more than 4cm or so in size, they look pretty menacing through a macro lens!

Complete with their little nursery webs and looking every inch candidates for on of those early Hollywood 'B movies'.








Something much more exciting was to grab my attention though, a species I've found and photographed previously in Sussex - Wasp Spiders (Argiope bruennnichi). I never throught I'd see the day when they would turn up at Venus Pool but they have!

Plenty of information is available on the web. One striking feature is the distinctive web they weave (although it is not unique in the spider world) The zigzag shape above and below the central part of the web is called a stabilimentum, possibly a lure to attract insects??






A bit closer......






The spider really does look like a wasp with striking yellow and black markings on the abdomen.....






One of their main prey species if the Grasshopper and this poor unfortunate specimen was awaiting consumption - wrapped in it's silken cocoon....






A close up of the biggest female found.....






Don't look at these too closely just before you go to bed......

Venus Pool - Lepidoptera day

I reckon Venus Pool is doing 'OK' at the moment. The 'odd wader or so' is the norm but thanks to the low cloud and rain, a trickle of waders on Friday produced 2 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Dunlin, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Common Sandpiper and 2 juv Littleringed Plovers. Not exactly news to rock the bird world but with weekend action on the insect and eight-legged front, no wonder I'm smiling after some good 'finds'........

Let's start with Butterflies, nothing out of the ordinary here but the 'high nectar' setaside margin to the top field is literally crawling with these little beauties....

Gatekeeper





Peacock






Female Small Skipper.






The newly described Blue Skipper (oh not again, it's not April 1st!!!)






Small Copper - these make such gorgeous subjects combined with an attractive American Physaria sp.....






Green-veined Whites ensuring there will be plenty more to come.....






Plus an impressive number of Common Blues, the males living up to the part....






The underwing just as attractive.






A study of colour variation in the female Common Blue, these are basically 'brown' with varying degrees of blue colouration....

From well marked with blue






Medium blue...






Minimal blue






To hardly any blue at all......






And now for somthing completley different......

Venus Pool - Brown Argus beats the blues

I was busy photographing female Common Blues to try and get as good a range as possible of the variation in upperwing 'blueness' (see the previous post for more) so I reckon I'd got my eye in!

All of a sudden, I became aware of something quite out of the ordinary! There basking on a grass stem was a pristine brown 'blue'. I wasn't sure what I'd got initially until it dawned on me (and my field guide pointed that way) this couldn't be a Common Blue - I was looking at a Brown Argus! Now, I don't 'do' butterflies that seriously and had no idea of the status of this species locally but after a couple of phone calls, I was left in no doubt - this was rather special!!

It's a male - the orange marks (lunes) are faded out at the wing tips, the abdomen is relatively long, reaching at least to the edge of the white fringe. The two black spots on the upper forewing add up to the classic appearance of a Brown Argus.......






Most of the key indicators are found on the underwing and obligingly (although I nearly lost it) it soon flew, and perched with wings closed on another grass stem.....

Two key features are apparent. Two of the black spots on the hindwing are arranged in the form of a colon (check my other pictures, in the Common blue these are aligned with the top of this wing). The orange lunes on the forewing are also bright and clearly defined (much more so than in Common Blue). Finally the shape of the forewing is more rounded than in the latter species.






Unconvinced? Here's a Common Blue female for comparison....






The only other distinguishing feature of the underside which I never managed a shot of - there is a 'missing spot' on the forewing (present in Common Blue). The shot below shows how close I came to getting this feature (not)....






Nevertheless, the compelling evidence you can see leads to only one conclusion - male Brown Argus and another gem onto the Shropshire list! Many thanks to Steve Cheshire by the way for his help and advice with identification. I've added a link to his amazing site 'British Butterflies' which you will find amongst my links on the right menu.....

Franklin's Gull take 2

There's an outrageous rumour going around (started by folk who haven't seen it) that the Chasewater/Gailey Franklin's Gull is a 'waste of time' just an odd looking Black-headed Gull?

Absolute nonsense! C'mon, Frank's a stunner and worth every effort to see - even though he is going a bit white on top and losing some of the bright red bill!

Anyway, I vowed to improve on Saturday evening's images and with news of another appearance at Gailey, I was off like a shot.....

Eager to prove who really is the stunner - cue, a Black-headed Gull for comparison purpose....






Busy picking flies off the surface.....






Just swimming around and looking good, those white, nearly complete eyelids.....










Steve Nuttall was looking pretty fit on site too, following two dashes from Belvide on his bike - he's out to take on Mark Cavendish in next year's Tour?..... As for Frank, next stop Belvide.... then Shropshire? Priorslee..... Venus Pool...... Chelmarsh......