nature

We were in South Wales for a long weekend recently, the weather was gorgeous and we decided to visit Cosmeston Lakes near Penarth which was formerly a Limestone Quarry and is now a country park.

There was plenty of insect life enjoying the sun, including a number of dragonflies patrolling their territory (and fighting over it), there were several large Emporer Dragonflies (Anax imperator) over one pond and I finally managed to get a reasonable shot of a dragonfly in flight (after a number of less successful attempts last year). I used a Canon 100-400mm lens resting on a fence post for a bit of stability and manually focussed whenever the Dragonfly hovered for a while, it took quite a few goes but I eventually got one that I was happy with.

Emperor Dragonfly

Common Darter

Formby Point on Merseyside is one of the last remaining strongholds of the Red Squirrel in the UK. It's owned by the National Trust and non-members pay a small fee for parking. You'll probably want a bag of squirrel food which is available here. There are around 1000 Red Squirrels the majority thought to descend from some squirrels that were brought over from Eastern Europe during the 1940's, this means that they are somewhat darker than usual for the UK. They inhabit an area of pine woodland originally planted by local farmers to stabilise the sand dunes.

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

I stayed in Loughborough on Sunday night and took the opportunity to get up early and visit Charnwood Water after a short stroll I was beginning to think I'd wasted my time and then I came across a number of Blue Tailed Damselflies warming themselves in a sunny patch.  Soon the warmth had brought out a number of Cabbage White and Gatekeeper butterflies and several Dragonflies.  I watched a couple of Black-Tailed Skimmers and got some funny looks from the dog walkers by leaning over the edge of the lake for 15 minutes waiting for one of them to return to it's perch.  I tried f

Charnwood Water

Charnwood Water

Charnwood Water

Charnwood Water