Crossman CO2 air pistol

Went out with Martin for a pistol shoot. Very muddy and we tried several places out of the way from footpaths etc. only to find them wet and mud that would be up to the ankles.

Eventually got out into the wilds. Muddy track and I could feel the front wheels sliding in places. We set up the target holders on each side of the car and let the windows down and fired from inside. The idea worked well and we fired at the target holders at around 45 degree angle at about a 25 foot distance.

Found I was shooting a group at 8 oclock and altered the sights.

A simple layout

Co2 cartridge gives around 40 shots at full pressure but it is important to count them as you fire. So easy to think you have some left, or even to think that you have fired all 10 pellets only to find one left in the magazine.

Ended up getting a better group but with a wild shots on them.

Is it the pellets or is it me? NIce to be able to shoot a pistol after so many years but I wish it were .22 long cartridges in it instead of air gun pellets.

Scorpion Fly on nettle leaf

Thick legged Flower Beetle on Convolulous flower

Finished transcribing The Clevedon Mercury Directory booklet and gone back to sorting and editing JPG pix from my Sony A350 files.

I had kept them separate from my main JPG's to look though and forgot I had them till I started tidying up my hard drives.

Both of these rather terrifying looking insects are harmless as far as human beings are concerned.

I was happy to find them though. I thought I had lost the pix when my hard C drive had to be formatted when it went down. Luckily the folder A350 was on one of my Auxiliary hard drives.

I still bless the day when I was told about the Australian 'recover my files' programme.

Station Road with Christmas lights still on

Went out early 6.30 a.m. for my usual Christmas day pix.

No-one around and easy to take sweep shots.

The lights had been switched off in the triangle but were still on in Queens Square and Station Road.

Add caption

Only problem in Queens Square was it was dark looking towards the supermarket.

No lights on in the Triangle but the street lights gave ample show. I reckon my Tamron 11-18 lens gives me around 210 degrees cover on a sweep. Might even be more but I have no way of actually reckoning it.

No Christmas lights in Hill Road but the street lights again were ample.

By 7.15 cars were getting active - or rather the drivers were - so I packed it up.

Orb spider repairing web

Amongst the Sony 350 JPG's was a set I had forgotten about. A Green Orb Spider Araniella cucurbitina  repairing its web that was suspended between fronds of the Honeysuckle.

I muast admit that I hate or at least dislike spiders but when they are little like this one I don't mind them so much. 

Hoverfly Sryphini taeniata ? 
No been corrected it is
a female Sphaerophoria scripta.

Making steady progress in editing and naming most of the DSLR 350 Hoverflies can be hard though. There are very good drawings in the book by Stubbs & Falk but some flies are so similar to others it is hard to be certain. Even though the drawings are as much as 3-4 times lide size some flies are so little that is still small on the page.This one for example is only 8.5 millimeters in life Luckily Barbol on Flickr ID Please was able to help with the correct latin name.

What is it?

I have at last started on a long delayed job of editing - deleting - and saving - a series of pix taken with my Sony A 350 back in 2008.

Just under 2,000 JPG's in 108 folders. Procrastination is a thief of time, as I have just realised. 

What I am doing is to whittle down the remnant of pix taken for use left in the files after the selection of pix required had been made. I have found several already that could have been edited and saved at the time.
However this one had been underexposed and was very dark. In order to see just what if was - I thought at first a piece of wood or dead leaf - I "Lightened shadows" with Elements 3 and saw that it is an insect of some sort.
I have put a request on ID Please in Flickr but wonder if it could be a Gatekeep or Meadow brown butterfly that had been caught by cow manure splash.
Answer from two people in ID Please, including Backeye. It is a Peacock butterfly Inachis io. I must try to find out why it is so splattered looking.

Clevedon early morning from Dial Hill Road

Went out early to see if the wind was enough to splash the tide. Nothing doing so I went on up to Dial Hill and got a pic across the beach to Wains Hill with the town spread across the pic.