Small copper butterfly

We took a trip down to Ware this afternoon so that James and Emma could stay with Jan and have a play in the priory playground whilst I went down to the river to take some photos.

I left Jan with James and Emma and took the short walk along the road past Glaxo until I came to the bridge which leads across the river. A short walk across another bridge and then a left turn led me down to the  Meads nature reserve.

The first thing I saw on entering the reserve was a couple of small red beetles on a thistle. Although I didn’t know at the time, when I got home and had a look in my collins Gem insect book I discovered they were Rhagonycha fulva, a type of soldier beetle.

Then I saw a small butterfly flutter by and took a couple of pictures of that (shown here). To freeze the movement due to the slight breeze and to hold the camera steady I set the ISO up to 600 which seemed to give acceptable noise performance, whilst increasing the shutter to about 1/500 at F5.6. Of course I wanted the shutter as wide as possible to throw the background out of focus as much as possible.

I got a few more shots of a wasp feeding on the sap from a fence post and some plants etc. but we only had about an hour because Emma had to be back for swimming so I had to leave. However, I’ve discovered a wonderful place for nature photography and I’m going back some time soon.