Saturday 15 March 2014

Late Morning Heath Hunting!

I was up and out of the house at 6am where on my way down to Reculver I saw 1 Little Owl perched in a tree. The forecast was for a brisk northerly wind with light cloud which eventually turned into a late sunny morning as I was getting ready to go home. I met up with Julian Perry and we walked down to Coldharbour and then inland to Chambers Wall before walking back along the embankment to the seawall. Birds noted were 2 Curlew, 21 Redshank, 1 Black Redstart was seen on the rocks near the towers but couldn't be found on our way back, 7 Oystercatcher, 5 Pied Wagtail, 10 Meadow Pipit, 14 Shelduck, 2 Gadwall, 6 Mallard but despite searching al the rocks we could not turn up a Wheatear. Moving on we noted 7 Dunlin, 7 Sanderling, 4 Reed Bunting, 1 Turnstone, c30 Dark bellied Brent Geese, 1 Pale bellied Brent Goose, 2 Little Egret, 1 Canada Goose west and at Chambers Wall there were 2 Yellowhammer and c50 Corn Bunting. With a couple of hours to go before returning home I called in at Bishopstone Glen just west of Reculver where I spent some time with the macro lens trying to work out various settings etc. I managed to find another Comma which I spent some time photographing, my efforts ranging from pathetic to quite nice.

Comma

With the sun coming through I then made the 5 minute drive over to East Blean Wood to see if I could find and Heath Fritillary caterpillars sunning themself, a bit of a needle in a haystack scenario but I thought it was worth a go. On arrival I could hear 1 Lesser spotted Woodpecker calling which I heard a few times later as well and a Coal Tit could also be heard. I soon found a Comma in the sun and a good search of the leaf litter in the end revealed a tiny Heath Fritillary Caterpillar, only about 7mm long. I then spent some time trying to photograph this with the macro lens, again with a varying degree of success but no doubt and issues would have been to do with the bloke on the end of the camera!

Heath Fritillary Caterpillar

A nice and enjoyable session and very nice to see the Heath Fritillary growing and surely during the week a few migrants will arrive in the area...... and you never know, I might even get the hang of this lens soon.

6 comments:

  1. Looking good Marc, soon be back in the swing of it :-)

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  2. I wish I could struggle as badly with my Macro lens as you are Marc!
    I would be very pleased if I could achieve anything of the standard as above.

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  3. Good to see the Heath Fritt larva showing already. Well found!!

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  4. Hello Marc,
    Lovely shots well in focus.... with the 150 macro?
    Have you received my answer by mail concerning this new lens of yours?
    Enjoy your sunday!

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    Replies
    1. Yes thanks Noushka, all received. Do you use live view, tried it yesterday and found it really helpful when focussing.

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