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…
Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 12:58 pm. Add a comment
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…
Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 12:37 pm. 1 comment
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.
Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 1:33 pm. Add a comment
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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Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 1:51 pm. 1 comment
About two weeks ago, temperatures were only a little bit chilly on the weekend so I went out to see what I could find. I also went out to try to improve my compositions. It is my goal to not just take identification pictures of insects and other small creatures – but to give them personality and make pleasing shots to look at.
Most of the small critters were hard to find that day, but I did find some interesting things. This one I found rather cute and it looks almost like the worm is introducing himself!
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Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 2:11 pm. Add a comment
Last weekend was a productive weekend for me, photography-wise. I wandered around my yard looking for interesting subjects and found several, without having to look very hard. This fly was very gracious to let me get several shots off.
I also learned a new trick. One thing to make sure to not do when photographing flies is to get in their light. I played around with this one to see how much it does truly matter. Sure enough, whenever I stood in its light, the fly took off. Therefore I approached from a direction such that my lens would not cast a shadow on the fly.
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Posted 3 years, 4 months ago at 1:40 pm. Add a comment
Every winter, approximately at this time, I notice that midges start collecting on our shed outside. My suspicion is that this is for mating, and that there is something about the shed that the midges like. Last weekend I decided to see what I could find outside and to no great surprise I found a few midges on our barn.
I didn’t bother photographing them for very long because there weren’t that many of them, I already have a number of photographs of midges, and there weren’t any midges in really great photographic position.
Nevertheless, that didn’t prevent several mysteries from cropping up.
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Posted 3 years, 4 months ago at 2:23 pm. 1 comment
As I mentioned before, I have had the chance lately to get a bit of reading done. While wandering through a used bookstore some time ago, I picked up a copy of Life in the Undergrowth. When I finally received some time to get some reading done, I sat down and went through it.
This is a very entertaining book. If you like insects, and you enjoy watching shows typical of Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel, this book is for you.
It is intended to supplement the television show presented by the BBC of the same name. The book reads very much like one of those shows, which IMHO is good in some ways and bad in some ways.
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Posted 3 years, 4 months ago at 5:15 am. Add a comment
This weekend one of my friends was nice enough to let me use his 40D to take pictures during several Halloween parties. Saturday and Sunday mornings, I decided to get a few macro pictures in, as the current estimates say I won’t have the 5D Mark II until the end of the month.
I took this shot of a very patient fly, though I was a bit heartbroken that it took off just after this and I might have been able to get the shot off. Still, I don’t think this one is so bad.
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Posted 3 years, 6 months ago at 2:16 pm. Add a comment
Several weeks ago I found this moth on the side of our shed.
Moths are especially difficult to identify, and I’m not exactly sure that I know what it is. None of my insect books had it, but that is the case for the majority of moths I come across.
Luckily, I came across this resource on the moths of the Pacific Northwest! After thumbing through it a bit, I believe I finally know what type of moth it is. And the drum roll…
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Posted 3 years, 7 months ago at 3:07 am. Add a comment