Snakefly Raphidia notata

e6filmuser

I haven’t posted much recently, life getting in the way of the important stuff. So I’ll start with something special, once in a lifetime for me.

I was in the car park of a local nature reserve, waiting to find dragonflies to photograph. As planned, a fellow fungus and slime mould enthusiast arrived. When they got out of their car they became a bit excited about some insect on the rear roof of their car.

I had some idea of what it was and set about photographing it. When it was facing to one side, that was not too difficult, but it was not so for the head-on shots. It had positioned itself exactly half way across the car, making the extreme stretch to frame and focus identical.

In theory, I could use the rear screen but it was in very bright sunlight. So I settled for less than 1:1 and cropping later.

The car was white and the insect nearly black. Also, it was right next to the dark valley above the rear door hinge. So some work on that shadow was essential.

As this is such a rarity, I have included conventional stereos as well as crosseye ones.

“Scientific name: Raphidia notata

Size: Up to 15mm long. Wingspan 28mm

Distribution: Found throughout the U.K.

Months seen: May to September

Habitat: Gardens, parks and woodlands. Sometimes seen on the bark of oak trees.”

They feed on small insects such as aphids.

There are three other species of snakefly in the UK, but they are all found on conifer trees (Raphidia confinis, Inocellia Crassicornis and Raphidia maculicollis).

Olympus EM-1 (aperture priority), Olympus 4/3 x2 TC, Olympus 4/3 50mm f2 macro, f11, hand-held, sunlight.

Harold