Some councils seem to be switching over to super-bright, white, LED streetlights. This would seem to pose a threat to many moths which will be attracted to them and either end up in a pile underneath, or get picked off by bats (the low-pressure sodium lamps currently in use in many areas are barely ...

Common experience! I've had it particularly with woodland butterflies like Speckled Woods with my Nikon D300, never with blues or whites. I've also noticed it with some other insects on occasions - for thius reason I generally switch to manual focus closer than 1:4.

Chris

Another foodplant is said to be buddhleia (if that's how you spell it!). A colleague of mine has bread them a couple of times recently, and brought the larvae and adult moths in for me to photograph. Impressive!!

Chris

I think the issue with the apparent aperture not indicating a full stop light loss may be a consequence of the fact that the apparent aperture of the lens changes as you focus (fact of life with macro lenses usually). In other words, at infinity focus, the aperture will indicate f2.8, but as you foc...

I spotted 4 or 5 Small Blues this weekend on a patch of kidney vetch a mile or so from my house (S. Oxon). All were rather worn females busy egg laying.

Not an enormous number, but more than I've seen there for a year or two.

Chris

I have an old Tamron SP90 Adaptall manual macro lens that I bought (for Pentax bayonet) but I have used it with an M42 adapter as well onm an M42 body. It is an excellent macro lens, prized by many (see last week's Amateur Photographer for example, which rates it highly as a second hand lens). It is...

They are fairly common most years around here (S.Oxon, Chalk Downland) in one or two specific spots. The best way I've found to see them is to go to prominent hawthorn bushes or small trees in sunny positions and wait. Groups of 3-4 GHs seem to move around over quite a large area, but will come back...

I believe that many cultures also associate butterflies with the spirits of the dead - same word in some languages. Greek mythology as well, I believe.

Chris

The first butterflies I saw this year (Feb, S. Oxon) were fast moving vanessids that looked very much like extremely worn Painted Ladies. They were flying "purposefully" very much like the waves of PLs that passed over last year. Bearing in mind the extremely cold winter, and the general b...

After all this white stuff, it was refreshing last night to open the door to let the cat out and have a moth fly in! Nothing very exciting (appeared to be a November Moth, obviously elderly and confused) but at least it was a lep!
Chris

Many thanks for the opinions, which I agree with. The colleague who saw the bird (and another local wildlife-er who came forward independently having seen it a couple of miles away an hour later) both thought it was a scruffy osprey (I didn't use the word, because I didn't want to lead anyone down t...

The girl who saw it is married to a very keen birder and goes regularly on birding holidays eg to Scandinavia. She is also a very experienced scientist and very accurate in her observations. She dismissed my suggestion of a hen harrier (but I did see two here on Saturday) when I saw the pic; I also ...

A bit off-topic this, but I know there are some butterfly-loving twitchers out there..... See this morning by a colleague on her way to work (near Wantage, S. Oxon) and photographed with a phone. She got a good look close up for several minutes, as it sat in a hedge. Is this what I think it is?? mys...

I don't know if anyone is interested but there are several "ring lights" on sale now which work quite well with a DSLR. One sold by Hama (via Amazon/Germany) has a ring of ultrabright LEDs on a flexible arm. This can be positioned in front of the lens like a normal ringflash or angled down...

In general terms, a ringflash is very useful for certain things, but will inevitably offend the purist who wants a natural-looking pic of a butterfly. I use them on occasion at work for technical subjects, but the problem with a butterfly is that you get the "miner's headlamp" effect, with...

Talking of graylings, one for the experts........ Seen flying round a wood at very high speed (July) in the Besancon area. After 10 mins or so of flying display, it flew at a tree stump at high speed and then disappeared, but was in fact disguised against the wood bark. Is it a Woodland Grayling, or...

I had a nice pic of a Small Tort aber. semi ichnusoides sent to me by an old friend who lives in S. Oxfordshire - has anyone else seen these around? As Small Torts eggs and pupae are available from suppliers for schools, I did wonder where these were captive bred on a hot window ledge in a school so...

I've had the most luck wrt hawkmoths (HBH or BH) using manual focus and finding a sprig of eg lavender where they return, time and time again. eg:- Having said that, I have had more than 30 hawk moths in my trap this year, and they are a lot easier to photograph when they are placidly sitting on a l...

Thanks for the advice, which has been most useful. I forgot to say originally that the files are all RAW, that I shoot in full sun/overcast, (but preferred conditions are hazy sun to reduce shadows) or flash - the ginger problem appears under all conditions. Oddly, if I use a colour digital test cha...

With certain orange-brown species, I have some difficulty with getting a reasonably realistic colour reproduction whatever I do In Photoshop (Elements 5). A good example is a Comma, which always looks too ginger 'ish, or Small Copper where for example several I saw this lunchtime, despite being quit...