Early morning starts for work over the last few year has curtailed my moth trapping at home, but Lock-down has meant no travelling into work in Manchester, result an extra hour or so at home before starting work. So I've dusted off the moth trap and started to run it each night. Whilst the catches have been small, it has allowed me time to photograph the moths trapped and anything else. Quite often the "by-catch" (the none moth species) get ignored, but they can make good photographic subjects.
In late April and May Cockchafers or May Bugs quite often outnumber moths. Having taken a few static shots, I decided to wait until the Cockchafers started to warm and try and photograph them flight. Eventually I succeeded by replacing the macro lens with my 17-40mm f/4. with the flash set for Hi-Speed sync.
Beetles do feature regularly in the moth trap and another regular visitor is the Sexton Beetle Nicrophorus humator with their attendant mites.
Other regular visitors include Caddis flies which can vary in length from around 8 or 9mm to over 25mm.
Finally spiders often occur including this Nursery Web Spider Pisaura mirabilis with its egg sack.
Of course there are nearly always moths to photograph as well :) Click on an image to view full size.
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