Afternoon All

Wonderful weather, Butterflies emerging and rain on the way; thunder storms – images? And, Boris gone and Trump in trouble – who would want to be a politician?

Message from Stan

Stan says – “I would like to buy a Canon EF 100mm – 400mm f/4.5 – 5.6L IS USM Lens. Please ask our members if anyone has one they wish to sell.”

Stan’s contact details are:

Tel: 01772 864120

Email: stanley.pearson@talktalk.net

Message from Michael:

Exhibition

Please check out: Lancashire Photography Festival Exhibition in Preston from this June. The UK’s biggest outdoor photography festival launches in Preston this June displaying major projects from several internationally-acclaimed photographers.

All info on line – looks very good!

Wednesday 14^th June

Regrettably, I will have to scrub this coming Wednesdays’ meeting (14^th June), due to the Ainsdale Dunes trip being cancelled, for the reasons detailed below.

We were going to discuss this trip and show images, also I was going to put together some other items I have on my list, but fate has intervened! I have no internet connection; (I’m typing this at my son’s house); it’s a long story but the nub is we are waiting for a cherry picker to fix the wire from our house to across the road to the ‘connection-box’ and I have been told they will hope to do this by next Friday!

So, I haven’t been able to do research on the topics I was going to show! So, no preparation!

However, I’m sure we will be able to meet the following Wednesday 21^st June. Normal service will be resumed.

So, we have the 3^rd Events Cup destination (Gresgarth Gardens) and Lee Metcalf’s trip to Morecambe so if anyone would like to show any images, taken on these 2 outings, on the 21^st that would be great; either bring them in on a stick or send them to me but after next Friday, the 16^th June!

Unfortunately, the Ainsdale Dunes trip was cancelled due to very poor conditions; email below from Trevor explaining the reason why:

Hello Michael,

I trust you got my email earlier this week; as mentioned I expected the drought to be a problem but the following explains the situation I have found:

On Wednesday this week I did a full recce of the area to the north of the Ainsdale entrance to the beach. This is an area known as the “Green Beaches”. This area had several thousand Marsh Orchids last year and many bee orchids too. This year I found just a few stunted specimens. The area is also good for both Northern Dune Tiger Beetles and a number of rare plants and insects. Sadly, I found no NDTB and very little else. This morning I have spent hours in the dunes and slacks to the south of the beach entrance, and again the area is completely droughted. The dunes are usually good for a number of orchid species at this time but I found nothing.

I can usually find hundreds of bee orchids – sometimes thousands, and a lot of Southern Marsh and other orchids. They aren’t there at the moment. Even Dune specialists such as Hound’s Tongue are stunted.

We had just one day with recorded rain in May, and April was poor for rain here too. I can usually find any number of caterpillars and butterflies but both recce’s yielded almost nothing.

Under these circumstances I am going to recommend that your group should not travel; there is little of interest to photograph I’m afraid and I would hate for you to see this lovely area in this condition.

We have had a succession of spring droughts here in recent years. They are having a very serious effect on many of the wildlife species that live here. The Natterjacks Toads have failed as a breeding species for the past two to three years. Even the butterflies all seem small this year due to lack of food plant.

I am sorry to disappoint you since this has been looked forward to for a long time. I was scheduled to take my own Southport P.S. into the slacks on Monday and have had to cancel that for the above reasons.

Whilst holiday-makers and sun worshippers love these long dry periods, they really play havoc with wildlife, and I know our local farmers are almost desperate for rain.

Climate change, eh?

Up and coming programme of events:

• Sunday 11th June – Events Cup 3rd destination to Gresgarth Gardens. 11am – 5pm.
• Wednesday 14th June – No meeting
• Wednesday 21^st June – Various images perhaps from Gresgarth Gardens, Morecambe or other images taken by members during the last month. Please bring them in on a ‘stick’ or email them in – I’ll also bring my computer to use Lightroom/Photoshop.

That’s all folks

Mike and Lewis