Recently I have been helping with a project called Orchid Observers, at the Natural History Museum. The aim is to get members of the public…
My first batches of sloe gin are ready to drink and are tasting pretty good so I think I can rough out my recipe now.…
This winter I have been making liqueurs with hedgerow fruits – things like sloe & damson gins and vodkas but also variations with hawthorne berries,…
I made this photo a little while ago, from my own specimens of the British Sarcophaga carnaria group (carnaria, variegata & subvicina). I posted it…
A little while ago I posted about a strange fly that had been shown to me at the Natural History Museum. It looked clearly like…
This autumn my friend Alexandru Pintilioaie in Romania sent me a batch of flies, including one metallic rhinophorid. We both agreed that it looked very…
I received a really interesting parcel today from a friend who holidayed in La Palma earlier this year. He had spotted some Tachina that looked…
Stopped in at Moor Copse on the way home today to check out how high the river is. Well, the answer is – VERY! Tidmarsh…
Just had time to look at a box of Venezuelan tachinids sent to me by my good friend Jose Manuel Ayala. There are plenty of…
Today I will be working on a nice little batch of tachinids sent to me my Ruud van der Weele and collected by him in…
Here are the last of Alexandru’s batch of Romanian tachinids, caught in 2010. They spent a long time in alcohol so they are not in…
Last weekend, on a quick (and rather cold) trip to Hartslock, I discovered a 7-spot ladybird that had been attacked by Dinocampus coccinellae, a parasitic wasp.…
Here are some photos from the Dipterist’s Forum Spring field meeting to Denny Wood in the New Forest.
This week has been a good one for deliveries – today I received a parcel from my friend Yves. This is part of a batch…
This week I have been working on a batch of Venezuelan tachinids, kindly sent to me by Manuel Ayala (see right). They are a lovely…
Received a nice little Russian microscope objective today from Haworthiaworld on eBay – a Lomo 8x 0.20 finite (I assume 160/-). I wasn’t expecting much…
I got an unexpected “gift” the other day of a Melles Griot 16x/0.32 160/0.17 microscope objective lens. I had ordered the 10x version (which is…
Have just come back from a lovely, relaxing trip to my parent’s for Christmas … lots of chatting, eating and (a little) drinking, all in…
One of the standard ways to test a macro photography set-up is to photograph a butterfly’s wing and then show the image as a crop…