Some creatures, like birds, seem in my experience to not like having cameras shoved in their faces. But insects don’t generally mind. The problem with capturing them is that they don’t stay in one place for very long. My technique largely involves setting the shutter to continuous capture then hoping the auto-focus does the work. I like this shot, though — also because of the overdwellings captured in the background, very Hebden Bridge.
Definitely the season for this flower, as I pictured it almost exactly two years ago to the day — 21/6/14 — only then initially misidentified it as violet. In fact it is wood cranesbill, Geranium sylvaticum, and very cute it is too, as the bees agree.
Another one of those days spent entirely working at home, with grey light, that will eventually do for this blog — one day I will get to the end and realise that there has simply been nothing to photograph. Still, despite some temptation to the contrary since the turn of the year, I remain here. Hope it doesn’t seem too desperate to stick a woodlouse on here — it’s not even that sharp a shot, because this kid could move, believe me. Usain Bolt standard, in relative terms.
I have this image of the bee just diving in and troughing, like it’s the bee equivalent of some Roman orgy or similar. “Hah! Gimme nectar!”
Captured while out on the second very good walk in three days, this time round Hebden Bridge with my and my sister’s families. Sometimes I wonder why I’m still doing this blog but once in a while it pays off. (When I first posted this I called it “Violet” but actually it is Wood Cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum).)
I know this is an essentially crap photo, with the focus all wrong, but it was a dramatic moment, at least at the micro-scale. I was trying to get a photo of this bumblebee as it buzzed around the plants by our front door, when suddenly it blundered into this web down by our old coal cellar, where the cave spiders live. Now I don’t know about you but if something one and a half times my size — and bumblebees, in insect terms, are not small — came leaping out at me with the intention of making me lunch, I think my life would flash before my eyes even if it was just an insect life. Three seconds later the bumblebee escaped, but I bet those were the longest three seconds it had ever known. I managed to get this one shot of the drama.
How on earth we get a ladybird in our house in February, I have no idea. Despite the mildness of the winter (and it has been very mild, with barely a frost yet), the only logical explanation is it’s been inside with us all winter. It was a bit sluggish, but alive.
Ahhhh, Nature. Whatever the species, even kingdom, the aesthetics of sex are essentially the same.
I’m trying to resist the temptation to overdo the ‘Flora/Fauna’ theme but don’t seem able to kick the habit. This was taken in the Boondall wetlands, where I wandered, around lunchtime. I needed some headspace so took my laptop and finished off the paper I needed to write while mainly sitting in a birdwatchers’ hide at the mouth of the Nundah creek. Memo to self though – if visiting wetlands, take insect repellent.
Some great insects however, including more butterflies than I think I have ever seen anywhere. Have no idea what this species is specifically, but there were lots of them, and this one is definitely resting on a paperbark tree – called as such for obvious reasons.
Tolerable weather today, by recent standards, and I got a Lake District walk in – photos are on my other blog (or will be soon, when I post them). This guy doesn’t get the day off though. He was hard at work as I passed him outside the village of Mungrisdale, Cumbria.
Over the course of this blog I have quite got into taking photos of wildlife: animals and plants make good subjects, they don’t get self-conscious in front of a camera. You can’t persuade them to stay in shot and in focus, but they don’t mind having cameras pointed at them per se.
By the way, I have one more month of this blog to go, at least to get to the full year that I set out to do. However, I am going to continue for a second year and finish, finally, on 25th August 2013.
Being 42 