I decided upon an easy random act of wildness today and so after tea this evening I drove out to Sidings Lane Nature Reserve on the Rainford Bypass with my youngest daughter. It's only a ten minute drive from my house but it's been over twelve years since I last visited the site.
The aim of the visit today was to see how many different insects I could find in the hour we were there. Finding them was one thing, photographing them another. I was either too slow zooming in with the camera and they took off or I couldn't quite get a sharp focus on my subjects.
At first it is quite difficult to find any insects in the grass and bushes but as your eyes become trained you start to see more and more. There wasn't a massive variety of insects on show tonight but we did manage to find a small selection in the hour we were there.
I will definitely make more of an effort to visit this site and would like to come early one morning to see if I can spot a fox or even a badger. One thing I will do after todays visit is make sure I master the manual focus feature of my camera.
Following the woodland
path to the meadow
The woodland path
The meadow
Our first bug find of the day
Daughter looking for insects
Ants on a prickly plant
Green metallic fly sadly out of focus
Daughter spots something
One of many snails we found
Fly
Time for a quick photo
The pond at the Nature Reserve
A Moth
A Large Red Damselfly
Daughter checking out the pond
Lily Pads
The pond to ourselves
The pond
A Water Lily
Longhorn Moth
More flies
Great colours
Daughter finds some more Ants
Ants
Copulating flies
Moth
Me looking for insects
Wildflowers
One of many areas where
we looked for insects
Bee in a leaf
Bee on a flower
(top view)
Bee on a flower
(side view)
Bee on a leaf
Cleaning our shoes
before we drive home
