Cirrocumulus Cloud

Clouds. Always an interesting subject to study and photograph.

Cirrocumulus Cloud are often referred to as 'Herringbone' or 'Mackeral' clouds and occur at an altitude from 16,000 to 39,000. They are short lived and transitionary originally formed from Thunderstorm clouds 'Cumulonimbus anvil'.

NB. I had to look all this up as you may have guessed. 

I can hear you yawning from here Trevor.{:))

More Dragons and Damsels

A belated post.

A few more images of Dragonflies and Damselflies shot over the last few weeks.

I never get the identification completely right on some of these so feel free to correct my mistakes. 

Female Four -spotted Chaser

Male Ruddy Darter

Immature male Common Darter.?

Female Ruddy Darter.?

Common Blue Damselfly (pair)

Male Common Blue Damselfly

Female Common Darter

Male Banded Demoiselle 

Female Banded Demoiselle 

Swallows on the Move

On a recent walk I concentrated on observing Swallows around the Parkland. At the time of taking these images a few days ago they were beginning to congregate. Some adults were still providing some food to the immature. The immature continued getting in plenty of flying practice. 

All were feeding up before their departure on migration to Winter quarters in Africa.

Adult

Immature

Not the easiest of out door sports is trying to photograph swallows as the streak across low over grass catching flies. Even shooting at eleven frames a second it is somewhat of a 'Hit and Miss" affair.

Since taking this walk I have revisited the area and found that most of the Swallows have gone.

Bon Voyage.

Black-tailed Skimmer

The Black-tailed Skimmer Dragonfly (Orthetrum cancellatum)

Fairly common species that can be found by open water in Southern England and some parts of Wales.

These shots are of the males that I found resting in the sun on a rock at the waters edge.

The have a tendency to fly away from and return to the same location frequently.

Bullfinch Juveniles

Last year in the Autumn I was able to photograph male and female adult Bullfinch eating Rowan berries from three trees in the parkland at a specific location.

However, as I walked by them this week I did not expect to find any birds on them just yet.

To my surprise there were two juvenile Bullfinch feeding away at the berries and completely undeterred by my presence.