Sneaking up on them is an acquired art. I find the shutter click will spook butterflies even when your sneaking succeeds. Silly as it may sound, thoughts of love and gentleness seem to work too. Approach them with anxiety that they will scoot off and that's exactly what they do, way before you get in range.

Looks to be a gorgeous park! Are you aware that you can view the DoF directly by twisting the ON/OFF switch further round past the ON position? It causes the iris to close to where you have set it, expressly to check the DoF.

First one has a nice, personal quality to it.

We used to call them dancing fairies when we were kids. Lovely shots - and good advert for Combine ZP.

3 is a nice composition, but they are all lovely.

I have been using SanDisk Ultra 16GB cards for a long time. I download via the USB cable and don't do anything to the cards except fill them up. Then I label each one with the date (from/to). That way the card doesn't get overwritten and serves as a hard copy backup. They are relatively inexpensive so I can't see the point of removing it to a card reader every day, reformatting it and otherwise doing things to promote problems.

New one on me too. I shall look it up, especially if it has views like those. Very nice set.

Dung fly. I was flat on my front yesterday photographing them on a nice fresh cowpat ! I'll post one when I process them.

You have some really way out bugs in your garden!

I accept that oversize items present their own problems (it is 60cm max length and 20Kg max weight) but normally, the included £500 insurance is a superb deal.
You wouldn't think that ParcelForce was the same outfit - their interest is bulk shifting, not the everyday Joe Soap who they try to scare off with daft pricing. Also, if RMSD fail to meet the deadline you get your money back. I send dozens of packages with them. I have had one claim for loss (dealt with promptly - and the damn thing reappeared about 6mths later!) and never a one delivered late. Bigger things, I use United Parcels - UPS who are reasonably priced and have never let me down.