Photo Hopes for 2011

I'm not doing New Year resolutions. I can never keep them. Instead, I'm planning some photos that I really hope to get this year, but it won't be a failure if I don't, because nature is a fickle thing. I've already got pics of some of these, but I really want a 'portrait' quality image of them.

These are just some of my 'targets' for the lens this year, in no particular order:

• Frog.
• Frogspawn.
  
• Female Wolf Spider with egg sac/spiderlings.
• Mining Bee.
• Mating Grasshoppers.
• Thick-Legged Flower beetle in flight (they look so ungainly).
  
• Dragonfly (any species).
• Holly Blue butterfly.
• Rose Sawfly laying eggs.
  
• Parasitic Wasp.
  
• Plant Louse.
  
• Garden Orb Spider spiderling ball.
• The scarab beetle that has flown off every time I've seen one for the last 2 years.

I'm also planning to take a pic of the pond at least every 2 weeks, hopefully every week or even more often in spring/summer, to record its first full year.

It all but vanished in December. You can just make out some ice under all the snow. Fortunately the plants seem to have survived (another good reason to buy UK native species). Just gotta hope the water beetle, frogs, newts and everything else found somewhere warm and safe to spend the winter.








Soon it will be spring, the garden will begin to awaken, and a new year of sitting out there and peering into bushes (for hours) can begin.

Bliss.