14 June, Dean Clough
A good day for invertebrates at Dean Clough with four Emperor Dragonflies being my first of the year. Also brief view of a male Black-tailed Skimmer – my first but not the first at the site – , one Large Red Damselfly, and several blue-tailed, blue and Azure damsels.
I saw a minimum of six Large Skippers which is the most I’ve counted there. Over 20 Meadow Brown were on the wing and at least one Wall Brown was on the dry stone wall below the dam.
Bird wise, a Reed Bunting male carried food to the iris bed at the head of the small reservoir. The female was present too at an obvious nest. I didn’t see any Stonechats – juveniles or adults. The Great-crested Grebe is still sitting – about three weeks now. A minimum of 320 Lesser-black-backed Gulls were on the lower res with about 12 Herring Gulls and a great-spotted woodpecker was drumming in Dean Wood.
All the images below were shot with the D500, Nikkor 300mm f4 PF lens with 1.4 tc ii. Camera settings were manual shutter and aperture with auto-iso. I often stop down the lens with insects because at low f stops when your so close there isn’t enough depth of field to get all the parts in focus, and even then it’s a challenge.
