Framedlight

Things not being so great insect wise at Paxton Pits I decided to turn my attention to the plants. We were in a meadow looking for the elusive wasp spider which we had been told had taken up residency there, but was hiding from us. As it was September the grasses were looking autumnal and everything was going to seed. I start with an overview of the meadow and then come the plants, finishing with a picture of one of the ponds I took on the way out, attracted by its vibrance. The macro pictures have been taken using a shallow depth of field to get that lovely creamy look.

Last week the Cambridge Camera Club had a trip out to Paxton Pits in Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire. This is a nature reserve based around some old flooded gravel pits next to an active quarry. The weather forecast was originally sunny, but by the time the day came, it had changed to cloudy, although dry. The hoard of insects we were hoping to see were all deep in the bushes waiting for the sun to come out and so the pickings were rather mean. We also hoped to see wasp spiders which had been reported on the reserve but these too were not around. The pictures are of a more common variety of insects - a damsel fly, frog hoppers, a bee, garden spiders and a hunting spider.They were taken using the 105mm Nikon macro lens.

I am not a nature photographer. They are others who excel in this medium and although I am interested in the natural world around me I lack the patience and the super large lenses to really capture pictures of birds and animals. However Paxton Pits is a great place for a walk and the gravel ponds are really pretty. In one part of the reserve there is still gravel extraction going on and, looking through the fence you can see the mounds of sand thrown up by the excavations. The trees were heavy with birds and cormorants occasionally flapped across the pond with nesting material