My Flora and Fauna Friday post this week is a continuation of last week’s post of a male Common Frog (Rana temporaria) croaking to attract a mate.
This week a pair of Common Frogs are mating in a garden pond at Hatherton near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England. This is known as amplexus, males develop nuptial pads to help them clasp the female. This allows them to kick away rival males.
This is my contribution to the A Photo a Week Challenge: Insects.
A small selection of photos of insects making more insects.
Common Red Soldier Beetles mating on top of Ragwort flowers.
Silver-studded Blue Butterflies mating on a grass seed head.
Pond Skaters mating on the surface of a garden pond.
This is my first post in what will probably be a new weekly feature, Flora and Fauna Friday.
This Friday I have chosen a pair of Silver-studded Blue Butterflies mating on a grass seed head. Photographed on Prees Heath near Whitchurch, Shropshire, England in the mid 1990s.
The butterflies at Prees Heath are an isolated colony with most Silver-studded Blue colonies being found in Southern England and Wales. They get their common English name from the small, metallic silver spots near the rear edgeof the wing.
I had a few ideas for the A Photo a Week Challenge: Fleeting but none of them really worked for me until I started thinking about some of the “grab shots” I remember taking over the years.
I remembered sitting in a garden shed I was using as a hide (blind) waiting for the resident European Robin to land on the telephoto lens I had set up. While waiting for the bird I noticed a pair of House Sparrows mating in the hedge. I swung the lens around and managed to get three photos before it was all over.
House Sparrows mating in a garden hedge.
Some time later one of the shots of the mating House Sparrows was published in BBC Wildlife magazine. None of the photos of the European Robin on the lens have been published but I have been using a version as my avatar for years.
The European Robin on a telephoto lens in a Cheshire garden.
This is my day 14 contribution to Becky’s April Squares: Top photo challenge.
I still don’t have an internet connection. I can use the cell phone as a WiFi hotspot early in the morning until the network gets busy so I am just posting anything I had prepared before Sunday evening.
A pair of Common Terns mating on a rock on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario.
This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge: The Birds and the Bees.
I decided to keep it simple and go with the prompt by using a small selection of photos taken in various gardens around the town of Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England.
Birds. A pair of House Sparrows making more House Sparrows in a Cheshire garden.
Bird and Bee. Not really but as close as I could get. The insect in the bill of this male Common Kingfisher appears to have an ovipositor so could be a sawfly or solitary wasp.
Bees. Well, a singular Honey Bee gathering pollen in a Cheshire garden.
This is my day five contribution to Becky’s April Squares: Top photo challenge.
Quick note. We have lost our internet connection again and I’m using the cell phone as a WiFi hotspot to post and let people know.
I went with this for day five after using a group of Mallard ducks resting on ice for day four. I thought a pair of Pond Skaters mating on the surface of the water was a nice contrast to ducks resting on ice.
A pair of Pond Skaters mating on the surface of a garden pond in Hatherton, Cheshire, England.
