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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

paul iddon

  1. Paul Iddon

    Scouring the garden for anything...

    Not the best day for macro in the garden - weather conditions are changing, so I just looked around for anything that might be worth pointing the lens at. The results are below: First some fern spores: Then an pupa among the mosses: Then I thought I'd try and get the fungus on an apple...
  2. Paul Iddon

    Male vapourer moth (Rusty Tussock moth, Orgyia antiqua)

    Wonderful features - the males fly by day but are often also attracted to light at night. Sometimes called 'Rusty Tussocks', the male vapourer moths are a rich brown colour with two distinctive eye spots - one on each forewing. Paul.
  3. Paul Iddon

    My Mason Bee update

    So my mason bees have progressed since the last time I photographed them. Now, the nest has been covered up, and at least one bee is looking into another hole about 10 inches away. I suspect there will be larvae under the cover, and maybe the mason bee that is flying around is look for a new...
  4. Paul Iddon

    Bramble sawfly

    It flew into the kitchen and landed on the inside of the window. I know it looks like outer space, but that's the fill-in flash picking up the flaws.... Anyway, I put my fingers in front of it and managed a couple of photos before it flew away and back to the garden (bad timing on my part!)...
  5. Paul Iddon

    I am wasp, I eat...

    Carrying on with my affection for wasp macros, today on a different apple, and no doubt a different wasp, the determination to eat fruit is remarkable. The split in this apple is maybe 3mm at most... Yet the wasp has to get in there! Paul.
  6. Paul Iddon

    The 11pm shift

    Just after 11pm last night I had a look around the darkness of the garden. Nothing unusual of course, except maybe the little braconid wasp, and I only managed the focus on the ocelli rather than the near compound eye. In addition, there was a tomocerus springtail, an opilione ( which I think...
  7. Paul Iddon

    Anomoia purmunda

    Pretty as a picture (fly) (sic) Paul.
  8. Paul Iddon

    I love wasp season...

    There is something about wasps and apples that I find fascinating and when it's time for the wasps to come eat the windfalls, the photos usually lend themselves to give me a real buzz - as long as there is no sting in the tale... ;) Also got an interloper photobombing the first! Then...
  9. Paul Iddon

    Hello darkness my old friend...

    ... I've come to photo you again... :LOL: 4 from late at night in the garden just before midnight. A froghopper (or is it a leafhopper, lol)... A silver sided sector spider (Zygiella x-notata) A short legged harvestman - I first thought Rilaena triangularis, but I now think it may be...
  10. Paul Iddon

    Too hot for harvestmen

    I found an opilione on the flags in the garden - in height of the afternoon sun, and it didn't seem to like any place to put it's legs, so after one shot I relocated it to the apple tree where there was an excess of places for it to stay cool. Paul.
  11. Paul Iddon

    Aglais urticae

    Small tortoiseshell popped onto the bird table for a minute before fluttering away.. Paul.
  12. Paul Iddon

    Even my subjects are few and far between...

    A lack of time and a paucity of subjects recently - but I managed some tonight. First is a bark fly, Ectopsocus briggsi, a GHS male (the giant house spider is one of our fastest invertebrates, running up to half a metre per second. This large, brown spider spins sheet-like cobwebs and pops up...
  13. Paul Iddon

    Parenthood!

    After weeks of waiting - parenthood has finally arrived for my wonderful Pholcus phalangioides. I missed the birth, but all seems to have gone well :) Welcome dozens of cellar spiders! Paul.
  14. Paul Iddon

    Burnet Moth

    About to feed on the thistle, then proboscis away! I often find the dark bluey/black of these moths are a tad more difficult to get the detail in, but these are not to bad. The adults feed on the nectar of knapweed, thistles and other grassland flowers, and females lay their eggs on the...
  15. Paul Iddon

    Acrobati-cat

    This sawfly caterpillar did a few aerobic exercises... Paul.
  16. Paul Iddon

    Downy JS & a parasitic wasp

    Three and out! Sometimes you just cannot keep up with a downy jumping spider! The last 3 are of a parasitic wasp is getting perilously close to the hole where my mason bees are nesting... I hope the search has ended at this hole! Paul.
  17. Paul Iddon

    Blue Mason Bee, and my best annual visitor - the ruby-tailed wasp

    This is a blue mason bee Osmia caerulescens - I'm pretty pleased to have 2 of them going in and out of the hole in the wall (a male and female I assume). There's also a shot of my favourite wasp, an annual visitor to my garden walls, the ruby-tailed wasp. Paul.
  18. Paul Iddon

    From the past...

    You'll see most (virtually all) of my photos in the macro forum, but I needed to do a photo with the theme "From the past" so I cobbled this still life together.... They were all found at my late mother-in-laws house and date back to various ages from the past: Brass vintage soap dish...
  19. Paul Iddon

    The whole world is at it!!!

    Everywhere is either double-bugged, monitored by a drone, or under some kind of Protection Racket! Paul.
  20. Paul Iddon

    4 tonight

    Found my first Bdellidae of the year - but unsure of the sp. and also a green thing which may or not have emerged from the black hole in space - as well as tiny oribatid mite (not my best shot though) and a very small vapourer moth caterpillar. Paul.
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