Yes, Spring is here and let’s hope we find more photographic subjects this season. A quick look around the tree trunks in the garden found a few spiders and a leafhopper, and a solitary wasp came to the moth light.

Badumna species with her egg case.

A small Two-tailed spider, Tamopsis species, good to see after a long absence.

A Flat-headed Leafhopper, Stenocotis depressa.

And a Short-tailed Ichneumonid wasp, Dicamptus fuscicornis

After weeks of dreary weather a warm calm day invited a trip round some local wetlands which fortunately proved to be so far unaffected by the H5 strain of bird flu. The privately owned wetland first visited was holding good numbers of duck species, Black Swans, Masked Lapwings, White-faced Herons and Pied Stilts, all too distant for photos. At Marlay Point, Lake Wellington was calm and peaceful, the breakwater piles were populated by plenty of Crested Terns, most taking it easy in the warm sunshine with heads beneath their wings, and the odd one preening. Some images will enlarge.

On then to a look at Lake Guyatt in Sale, a man-made wetland that can host a remarkable variety of native water birds, with Ibis predominating at the moment.

A small group of Straw-necked Ibis were displaying their finery in the good light, enlarge.