Re: MikeOxon
Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 10:52 pm
Another warm afternoon, today, though sunshine was in fairly short supply, locally.
I drove to the Lambourn Downs, near Wantage, and parked on a minor road at SU325833, from where a bridleway leads up to Crog Hill. For this trip, I decided to take my 'lightweight' FZ200 camera, as my back was complaining after a couple of trips with the full Nikon gear!
At the top of the track, just beyond the narrow strip of woodland seen in the above photo, is a good place for Duke of Burgundy, and I was not disappointed. I am still learning how to use the FZ200 and don't feel that I have optimised the settings yet. I have an old set of 55mm Hoya close-up lenses, originally bought back in the days when I used a Pentax Spotmatic, and have fitted these to the FZ200 lens, by using a 52-55 adapter ring.. Many of these shots were taken with the +1 dioptre lens in place.
The first DoB I saw was a rather faded female but I soon found several males in excellent condition and ready to pose on Cowslips.
In the same area, there were several Dingy Skippers, Brimstones, Orange Tips, and rather faded Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock. As I walked back to the road, I also saw several Small Blues.
I decided to continue walking along the road to the BBOWT Seven Barrows reserve.
Until recently, this reserve had a good colony of Marsh Fritillaries but these now seem to have disappeared, though I still keep a look-out for them.
Today, there were good numbers of Small Blues:
A flash of orange led me to a very newly-emerged Small Copper
Dingy Skippers and Brown Argus were also plentiful:
I had a heart-stopping moment when a much brighter fulvous 'butterfly' appeared but it was not the hoped-for Marsh Fritillary but a very fresh Burnet Companion moth.
As I was leaving the reserve, I spotted a very pretty moth skulking in the undergrowth, which I think is a Red Twin-spot Carpet, though I'm ready to be corrected.
Mike
I drove to the Lambourn Downs, near Wantage, and parked on a minor road at SU325833, from where a bridleway leads up to Crog Hill. For this trip, I decided to take my 'lightweight' FZ200 camera, as my back was complaining after a couple of trips with the full Nikon gear!
At the top of the track, just beyond the narrow strip of woodland seen in the above photo, is a good place for Duke of Burgundy, and I was not disappointed. I am still learning how to use the FZ200 and don't feel that I have optimised the settings yet. I have an old set of 55mm Hoya close-up lenses, originally bought back in the days when I used a Pentax Spotmatic, and have fitted these to the FZ200 lens, by using a 52-55 adapter ring.. Many of these shots were taken with the +1 dioptre lens in place.
The first DoB I saw was a rather faded female but I soon found several males in excellent condition and ready to pose on Cowslips.
In the same area, there were several Dingy Skippers, Brimstones, Orange Tips, and rather faded Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock. As I walked back to the road, I also saw several Small Blues.
I decided to continue walking along the road to the BBOWT Seven Barrows reserve.
Until recently, this reserve had a good colony of Marsh Fritillaries but these now seem to have disappeared, though I still keep a look-out for them.
Today, there were good numbers of Small Blues:
A flash of orange led me to a very newly-emerged Small Copper
Dingy Skippers and Brown Argus were also plentiful:
I had a heart-stopping moment when a much brighter fulvous 'butterfly' appeared but it was not the hoped-for Marsh Fritillary but a very fresh Burnet Companion moth.
As I was leaving the reserve, I spotted a very pretty moth skulking in the undergrowth, which I think is a Red Twin-spot Carpet, though I'm ready to be corrected.
Mike