CalevPhoto

Are carpenter ants really dangerous?

As some of you know, I have a decent sized carpenter ant (Camponotus modoc) colony in the backyard of my house.  Someday I’ll probably have to get rid of it when we want to sell the place, but for now it has provided some interesting photographs.

Over the weekend I found them active as usual once I picked up a few pieces of wood.  Under one piece I found some that were quite large – probably among the largest ones I have seen.  This got me to thinking, how dangerous are these guys (or in truth – ‘gals’) really?

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A slug and a surprise

Over the weekend, I decided to see what I could find outside.  It was a bit cold, so nothing was obvious in the open so I turned to the standard process of turning over different logs and rocks to see what I could find.

On turning over a piece of wood, I was delighted to find a leopard slug.  These slugs are native to Europe, but have become common in gardens on the West Coast of the United States.  According to Wikipedia, they mostly eat rotting plant matter and fungi but another site mentions that they eat other slugs so I’m not sure.

The slug was actually too big to fit in the view finder with my MP-E 65 so I settled with taking some pictures of the texture of the slug – which I found rather interesting.

However, there was more than meets the eye with this slug, as I was about to find out when I turned it over.

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Some days are better than others

As many of you know, every Friday I make an attempt to photograph for an hour by several ponds that are next to the building where I work.  In the past I have gotten some nice shots there, but not every day is the same…

I took this shot with my 180mm macro while I was trying to get close enough to the ducks.  They were very friendly, but I was asking too much to get that close to them.  I’m sure if I was patient and sat there for awhile one of them would have come close, but this is the only shot of the bunch I didn’t delete. Continue Reading…

A day of ducks and bugs

Last week I decided to spend some time photographing the ducks by building 30.  I felt a bit strange, as the last time I took the time to photograph ducks, I had just bought my camera.  I find it rather humorous how every photographer seems to start with ducks.  They are easy to find, pretty, and don’t mind us getting close.

We watched the ducks for about a half hour.  I didn’t get any shots that I am particularly crazy about, but it was interesting watching them.

From watching them I learned that each pair of ducks seems to have a territory.  Generally the territory is defined by some natural obstacles – such as a fallen tree or some branches.  When another duck (particularly a male) enters this territory the other male will slowly glide towards it.  Most of the time, the intruder responds by backing off and leaving the duck’s territory.  However, once in awhile they start fighting.

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Mysteries come, mysteries go with the Canon 5D Mark II

One of the things I am getting the biggest kick about with the 5D Mark II is the resolution of the shots.  Very often when paired with my MP-E 65 I see things that I would never have been able to notice.  In some cases they answer questions I had always wondered about.  In other cases they bring up new questions.

Mystery solved: How to harvestmen climb?

Here you can see a closeup of two of the legs of the harvestman.  On the ends of each leg are claws.  They obviously use these claws to grasp onto things.  This shot was taken around 3x magnification and is blown up 150%.

Of course, with each mystery solved a new mystery comes along.  This harvestman was found on a fallen leaf.  Therefore the new mystery is – what are those things coming out of the leaf?  My guess is they are some kind of mold or fungus, but I truly do not know.

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Sometimes the subjects come to you

The day was done and I was happy with the shots I had gotten.  We had walked at Twin Falls State Park and I had taken some decent shots that day, including my first silverfish.  As I was chatting about how to find interesting insects, I glanced at my tripod that was sitting on the ground.  There was something interesting climbing on it.  I could not identify the insect, but quickly got some shots of it as it explored this strange thing that had invaded its forest.

The patterns on its wings in particular were very interesting.I wish now that I had tried to get a closer shot of them, but this particular critter was not going to sit still.  Getting good shots of it was a challenge.  However, after consulting my literature at home I am now fairly certain of what this is. Continue Reading…

A silverfish is not a fish!

Last weekend while hiking at Twin Falls State Park with some coworkers, we had finished photographing the waterfalls and stopped by a small river to take some shots.  I quickly got out my macro lens and started looking under logs and brush to see what I could find.  The vast majority of my macro photography is from my backyard, so this was a major treat for me.

Sure enough, after turning over a log I saw something interesting moving.  I knew immediately from the shape of it what I had found, even though I had never seen one before.

This is none other than the silverfish.  The silverfish is a very primitive insect that many people know as a pest in their house that east book bindings.  While I have never found one in my house, I was delighted to find this one in nature. Continue Reading…

The mystery of the strange beetle larva revisited

Some time ago, I blogged about a strange beetle larva that I had found.  It is clearly the larva of something – probably a beetle.  However, I still have no idea what it is.

Interestingly enough, I have only found this critter in one place – close to one of the ponds near my office.  I have never found one by my house or in any of the parks.  Therefore, my suspicion is that – while obviously not aquatic – whatever this grows up into prefers to be near water.

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The bugs are back in town! (Part II)

I had to finish yesterday’s blog due to a FlickR outage (they host the pictures for the blog), so continuing with the story I was amazed with how many bugs were out.  I picked up the lid on one of the trash cans in the back of our yard and noticed a stink bug.  This is a shot after I had moved it to a leaf.

At first I was rather excited because as I prodded it to move to the leaf I smelled something curious.  Had the stink bug actually fired at me?  After all, it is well known that stink bugs defend themselves through a foul smelling mixture that they spray at potential attackers.  I then heard my neighbor cussing that something he had opened really stunk, which culled the excitement.  A closer sniff of the bug revealed that it was not the stink bug itself.  Perhaps it did spray, but I couldn’t smell it.

I then moved the stink bug to a primrose that I felt was more photogenic.

It didn’t seem enthralled to be there and soon took off.

I let it go, knowing that it certainly will not be the last stink bug I photograph this year.  I always enjoy photographing them due to their bright green color and interesting eyes.  The next time though I think I’ll try finding a leaf that matches the color as close as possible and try some photographs on it.  I’m not sure the strong colors of the flower really helped the shot in this case.

Another interesting episode came with an ant that I found crawling in one of our recycle bins.  It took off when I tried to photograph it and crawled into the bin.  I watched it for a bit until it came to the very edge of the recycle bin and we stared at each other for about a minute.

I’m not sure of the species.  It did not appear to be a carpenter ant, but I didn’t get a good enough shot of the entire body to be able to identify it.

Finally, I did not have too much luck with the flies that day – who were a bit skittish, but I did manage to get one fly.  Interestingly it was wingless – though I’m not sure why.

Why this particular fly did not have wings will have to go in my mystery bin.

The bugs are back in town!

Last weekend we had a nice warm spell and I found it fascinating how some of the usual suspects just popped out of nowhere.  Sometimes I really wonder where many of these insects go when the weather is bad – as when it is cold and wet it is nearly impossible to find many of these and once the weather turns good they are everywhere.

I found this ladybug on one of our outdoor chair covers.  I didn’t feel this was the best place for it so I moved it to one of our rose bushes.

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