Flyladyphotography By Wendy Cooper

  Once upon a time, there was a woman who was rather scared of 'Creepy Crawlies' and buzzing whizzing things.  She was even more scared of spiders...   Then one day she decided to learn how to use her camera, she started off on larger creatures, but during the summer months, when the birds were all busy with young or out of sight behind the leaves, she began to look more closely at the little creatures.  After a while, with the help of a long lens, she began to 'see', get curious as to what she was seeing and began to marvel at the world of Minibeasts.   Every year, I love watching everything emerge and follow a cycle, from the plants reappearing in the spring, followed by the first Bees, then watching the birds getting busy, then in the summer, the gradual emergence of fairly common insects.  I almost tell the time of year, by what I'm observing out on my walks.     I'm not scared of the Creepy Crawlies and buzzy whizzy things anymore and can even cope wi

  How do you decide what your favourite Nature photograph is (that you may have taken) ?  What do you think makes it a favourite?   I was recently asked if I wanted to supply some images for BBC Springwatch to use on their  Instagram page ,  with the brief being to provide ten of my favourites...  Well as I have a sizeable archive of nature photography - my 'diary' for the past few years, I had a bit of a task on my hands to choose!  That got me to thinking however, what makes and just how do you choose your favourites?   For me, everytime I go walking with the camera, it's usually on a 'see what I shall see' basis; sometimes a lot, sometimes it's quiet, or I see and hear masses, but the subjects simply are not up for being photograhed.  I've lots of memories of special moments with wildlife - most recently, two brief encounters with a local female Sparrowhawk, with glimpses caught of her in flight as she is vocally sorting someone out on her patch - but