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Photography by Lauren, Preston (2026)

07/02/2021

Great tit and blue tit photos 💙🖤

07/02/2021

A mix of squirrel and starling photos 🐦🐿

07/02/2021

So let’s start with this backlog of robin photos. It may seem hard to believe that these first few photos are robins but I can assure you they are. This is a robin in summer. Lacking the red breast colour but still just as pretty. Also some lovely photos from brockholes and the park of robins close up and even one mid song with its little beak wide open ❤️

07/02/2021

So after a very long time off trying to just get out and about and take some photos I’m back ready for the next year of my life. I’m just gonna start with uploading all the photos of species I’ve already talked about like Robins and some butterflies ect. Then I will make a start on some more new informative posts. I want to also start making posts about the stuff I’m doing in my life to help wildlife and nature and things like gardening tips to attract wildlife and guides to making bird feeders ect. I want to branch out a little more and reach a wider audience 😊 also how adorable are my little models. I would love to start doing some pet photography this year so am building a small portfolio using my dogs and some friends pets as photography subjects 🐶

14/11/2020

Back onto Chester zoo posts and one of my new favourite butterfly species that I wish was a UK species 😩 this stunning specimen is Heliconius melpomene more commonly known as the postman butterfly.

There are many sub species and hybrids of the postman butterfly with differing wing patterns and colour variations. As a general rule postmen butterflies will have red orange or yellow stripes of inner wings with black tips. Some have while along the edges of the bottom set of wings. They’re native to Mexico and South America as well as parts of Central America.

They are known to eat Passion flower and take in chemicals from the flower when young to use in adulthood along with its bright colours to deter predators. They’re found near slow flowing streams and small forests and are quite slow flyers so should be easy to spot.

Their conservation status is currently of least concern but as well all know habitat loss and pollution is rising meaning soon that may change and the species could become endangered like so many other species on this earth.

Chester Zoo have an AMAZING butterfly house and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who goes to the zoo. It’s go so many gorgeous species and could entertain me for hours 😍🦋

12/11/2020

A very old photo for today. This is from around almost 3 years ago when I went to Berlin zoo on a holiday with the parents.

Berlin zoo is the biggest and Europe and I’m sure took us at least 5 hours to get around the whole lot. They have the zoo itself plus a 3 level aquarium/vivarium building. This here is one of the jellyfish they had in the aquarium building. Berlin zoo is the only inland aquarium I believe in the world that breed multiple species of jellyfish in artificial seawater. They’re not the easiest species to keep so the team at the zoo are always working hard to keep optimum temperature and ph levels for them.

Jellyfish are a well known creature that most have a simple knowledge of. This one reminds me of a sea nettle species of jellyfish although I can’t be 100% sure on the identification of it.

The sea nettle species is found in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and can give a nasty sting. They usually have a white bell (the top) than can have red/brown stripes and long slender tentacles. They move by pulsing the bell like most other jellyfish however some species can be anchored to the seabed by a stalk.

Jellyfish are quite helpful in science too as some species produce a chemical to allow bioluminescence (the fancy word for glow in the dark). Scientists can extract this chemical and use it as a dye in some marker genes when investigating certain diseases and illnesses.

They’ve been around for millions of years and there are now so many different species. Overall jellyfish are widespread throughout the oceans however some species are endangered due to climate change and pollution as well as overfishing of their food source.

29/10/2020

What a cutie this little bird is 🥰
The Nuthatch- Sitta europaea

These little birds are grey on top with a buff plumage under their bellies. They have a prominent black eye stripe with a short bill and tail. They’re good climbers and will often walk down trees head first. They’re very easy to identify not only with the colour marking but with the funny pose they do. This is shown in the second picture where they stand with their head and chest puffed out.

They are very common around the UK (except Scotland and Northern Ireland). They usually nest in old woodpecker holes that they line with mud, twigs and leaves. They have 6-9 eggs between April to June. They eat seeds and nuts they the wedge into cracks of wood to help crack the shells open.

They’re very small and very funny to watch darting around in trees 🥰🐦

29/10/2020

Always a game i play when out is trying to spot the noisy but elusive grasshoppers. Once again I’m dreadful at identifying the different species but as a guess we have
-meadow grasshopper
-mottled grasshopper

I think most are meadow with the bottom 2 on the rock being the mottled one.

As most will know grasshoppers are generally green- brown in colour with some being more reddish. They rub rows of pegs on the hind legs against the forewings to create sound, this is called stridulation and is mainly done by males to attract females.

Grasshoppers are actually one of the oldest species of chewing herbivorous insects dating back to the early Triassic period. There is a name given to the study of specifically grasshoppers- acridology 🦗

29/10/2020

God I’ve fallen so behind with the photography with the awful weather and prepping something very special. Happy to finally be getting back on track. Today we are aiming for 4/5 posts 🤞🏼

First up I’ve been dying to show everyone this for so long. This is what I believe to be Grammoptera rufocornis. A common grammoptera long horn beetle. I love longhorn beetles and wish I had more photos of them. Next year it is my mission to get as many species of them as possible.

The common grammoptera is a small member of the longhorn beetle family being only around 3-7mm long. They are brown/grey in colour and have black and red handed antennae. They’re usually found on hawthorn or hogweed plants but can be found in woodland areas hence I spotted this one at Beacon fell.

They can be seen in early summer however the larvae can be found feeding on wood of dead twigs and are common in the UK.

Longhorn beetles are so various in size and colour so I’d love to take more pictures of them and show them off

21/10/2020

MUSHROOMS!!!! 🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄

I have to admit I am awful at identifying mushrooms and fungi. I know there is some root and tree rot in there. Maybe some brittle stem fungi. I do think there are around 4 different families of fungi here however to name an exact species I would find difficult. I will hazard a guess that we may have

-Coprinacae family
-Physalacriacae family
-Strophariacae family
-Paxillaceae family

That’s about as close as I will get 😂🍄

21/10/2020

Back to Chester zoo for this post. This is a Procavia capensis or a rock hydrax.

This funny looking little creature although the size of a large guinea pig are actually most closely related to elephants. Much like elephants they have a sensational sense of hearing but they also have two large incisors that continually grow much like elephants tusks. They also have hooves instead of claws and like their relatives spend much time basking in the sun. They have long body hairs around their face which act like whiskers so they can feel their way around small dark spaces (they do have good eyesight as well which also helps).

They live in small colonies of around 25 individuals in the deserts of Africa and rocky peninsulas. (The colony size is variant on food availability. If there is plenty of food the groups can be as big as 50 individuals). They climb the rocks with ease thanks to their rubbery damp soles of their feet. They are omnivores eating both meat and leaves. They mostly eat small lizards and insects as well as fruits and leaves. As a result of this they don’t drink much water as they get most of it from their diet.

They can’t regulate their own body temperature like we can so often huddle together to get warm or spread out to cool down. The gestation period is unusually long at 7-8 months and they usually have 2-4 offspring. They’re of least concern at the moment but with climate change and loss of habitat it’s no surprise that these creatures may well be coming ever closer to extinction.

21/10/2020

Butterflies 😍🦋

Small and large white butterflies. They’re hard to tell the difference between. The large whites are also known as cabbage white butterflies as they’re a pest to people who grow cabbages. The caterpillars feed on the cabbage leaves as well as other brassica crops. The male large whites are white with black patches at the edge of the fore wings and lack black eyespots. The female large whites do have the eyespots to resemble the small white. You can see large whites from April to October all around the UK.

As suggested by the name the small white is similar to a large white. They’re just smaller and have less black on the wing edges. The female as 2 wing spots whereas the male only has 1. They too can be cabbage pests feeding on plants in cultivated land. They emerge slightly earlier than the large white and can be seen from March to October again all around the UK.

Both the small and large whites have yellowish underwings so again can be hard to tell apart. I do like these common garden visitors. I especially like the first photo where I believe what may be a honey bee is on the thistle to the left of the butterfly 🥰🦋🐝

Photography by Lauren

07/02/2021

07/02/2021

07/02/2021

07/02/2021

14/11/2020

12/11/2020

29/10/2020

29/10/2020

29/10/2020

21/10/2020

21/10/2020

21/10/2020

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