Magic Macro

Visited the Fen for the first time for quite a while yesterday, it’s looking incredible lush right now, and full of insect life despite the rain. The first find was this brightly coloured Common Blue Damselfly. There were quite a few of these around, this one is just finishing his aphid meal.

Walking around the long way I had my closest encounter yet with a Buzzard on the Fen, as the large brown raptor soared over the treetops ahead being mobbed by Carrion Crows.

Numerous butterflies were on the wing, some looking slightly worn due the terrible conditions we’ve been having, not a great year for these. Here’s a Ringlet butterfly amongst the wildflowers.

 

I decided to head through the woodland, which was quiet and humid. I had a sense of being an explorer in a tropical jungle with the bracken growing taller than me in some spots. The saturated peaty path combined with the dense tree canopy made it a perfect place for midges and I found myself being eaten alive. After ten minutes of hasty slipping and squelching through the quagmire and a bit of bad language I eventually made it out of the trees back to the relief of the open fen. A beautiful sight greeted me as a Hobby swooped across one of the scrapes after dragonflies.

I found this Soldier beetle by the path.

The fen is full of plant-life too, the delicately perfumed Meadowsweet growing alongside the dusky pink flowered Hemp Agrimony gives a vintage strawberries and cream edging to the path. Purple Loosestrife sends spikes of colour through the reeds, and myriad other plants that I can’t identify are in flower too. The striking red and black day flying Six-Spot Burnet moths elude my camera, but creeping along the boardwalk I spy a little dinosaur basking in the sun.

 

A handsome male Common Lizard poses for me. This characterful creature was seemingly curious about the noisy one-eyed creature looking at him.

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