Chorlton Waterpark Butterfly and Moth Walk - Saturday 26th May 10am-12noon

The event was run by the City of Trees team ( www.heritagetrees.org.uk). Other events coming up include Orchids and Dragonflies.

WEATHER: Overcast but warm, intermittant sunny spells. Breezy.

First of all both Tom's and my camera failed, both with battery issues. I wouldn't mind but I had 4 more fully charged batteries at home 😖, so all images are taken with a phone and I couldn't actually see the screen.

Not many butterflies as it was windy however when the sun came out we saw quite a few female orange tips and a couple of males. The female has black tips and the male has the orange tips on its wings. Lots of a small moth that turned out to be a day flyer called a Silver Ground Carpet Moth.

Dave showing us a Silver Y Moth

 Close up of Silver Y Moth

Elephant Hawkmoth

Damselfly

Tom looking for stuff for his collection case

Bluetailed Damselfly

Damselfly female

Tom writing down his findings

Marsh Orchid

Alder Beetle, lives on Alder leaves, look at the other leaf and you can see orange eggs

St George's Mushrooms, edible apparently.

Rare for GTR MCR, Spotted Medik, little yellow flowers, and black spots on the leaves.

Part of the clover family.

Finally a Speckled Wood Butterfly

Afternoon digiscoping

  CCC Bluebelle Campsite, Preesall, Knott End

4 days Podding

 

Looking towards the yatching club 

Setup

 

Paragliders

 

Garden Birds at the Feeders

The site owners had set up some feeders in the trees and below are a number of garden birds who visited them during the afternoon.

• Blackbird
• Chaffinch
• Greenfinch
• Robin
• Dunnock
• Sparrow
• Great Tit 

ND Filter Chart

Stretford Meadows Checklist

Stretford Meadows is a great for spotting all sorts of wildlife and in particular birds, here is a list of what you can see on the meadows:

Chiffchaff
Chaffinch
Whitethroat
Blackcap
Kestrel
Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Buzzard
Grasshopper Warbler
Ring-necked Parakeet
Swallows
Stock Doves
House Martin
Pheasant
Carrion Crow
Sparrowhawk
Linnet
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Bullfinch
Jay
Goldcrest
Meadow Pipit
Redpoll
Redwing
Blackbirds
Grey Partridge
Magpie
Goldcrest
Fieldfare
Starling
Wood Pigeon
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Robin
Wren
Swift

See what you can tick off your list

Fleetwood Birdwatching Sites - Wyre Estuary

A trip to Fleetwood planned for May, Bluebell Campsite Knott End.

Year round interest.
High tide wader roost near the disused coast guard station.
A chance to practise some digiscoping and hopefully get some great images.
Fleetwood Birder - wildlife hot spots

Places to explore:

• Rossall Watch Tower
• Knott End Beach, best watched at high tide during neap tides or on the flowing or ebbing tides during spring
• Tidal Pond in the Estuary
• Fleetwood Golfcourse viewed from the promenade
• Fleetwood Marine Lake
• Wyre Estuary Country Park 
• Skipool Creek (Near bridge / Yacht Club) 
• Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park

 

• Fleetwood Bird Observatory Recording Area

March to May- what to see

Large parties of Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Knot and Dunlin, smaller numbers of Grey Plover and Bar-tailed Godwit on the shore at Rossall.

June Sandwich and Common Terns start to appear.

Digiscoping Tips

Equipment:

• Canon DSLR 1200D
• Celestron Ultima 80 Scope
• Velbron Sherpa 200 tripod
• Scope Adapter (See below)

 

You can adjust the adapter by little Allen key and screws on the side so your camera is straight, you can set this up correctly before you go out.

5 areas to get right and improve your digiscoped images.

Good Focus

Settings

Remote release

Stability

Optics

Good Focus: Ensure you focus on the EYE of the subject and get it nice and sharp.

Settings: Know your camera:

ISO - High ISO means fast shutter speeds, less likely to have camera shake and blurred images. However high ISO means grainier images. More light means you can reduce the ISO down to 100 or 200 but remember you will have a slower shutter speed. get some test shots in.

Aperture Priority Mode - smaller the f number the larger the aperture and the more light is let in. Try to keep it as wide as possible, so f4 or below is great.

Manual Focus - as the camera has a viewing screen you can ensure the image is focused correctly. 

Remote Release / Self Timer - helps to reduce camera shake when holding the camera.Use either to limit shake.

Stability- Ensure your tripod / scope / camera are solid and balanced.

Optics- This one is probably obvious however a good budget system can work well. How much do you want to pay out and what compromise will you have on image quality. It is usually better to have a removable eyepiece and a adapter for your DSLR Camera, making it a secure lightproof connection.

The following image was captured with the equipment I have. Taken at a considerable distance, hardly visible with naked eye (mine anyway).

Some additional camera gear

EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
The compact and affordable EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS offers powerful telephoto performance. Its 4-stop Image Stabilizer with automatic panning detection effectively suppresses blur in low light.
To combat the effects of camera shake, the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS incorporates Canon’s 4-stop compensation Image Stabilizer technology. This allows the use of shutter speeds up to 4 times slower with no perceptible increase in image blur. Automatic panning detection automatically turns off the Image Stabilizer in either the horizontal or vertical direction when following moving subjects.
Canon UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) lens element to suppress the effects of secondary chromatic aberrations – for crisp, sharp, high-contrast images without fringing throughout the zoom range.

• Focal length equivalent of 88-400mm in 35mm format
• UD element

 

ET60 Lens Hood

Additional LP-E10 batteries and Charger

Additional Memory, you can never have enough!

Now to get out and take some photographs.