Archive for the ‘Conservation’ Category
Stilt Legged Flies – Courting and Mating and …
At first I only saw him, standing on the edge of the leaf waving his front legs in the air. I looked across the chasm between leaves for what he could possibly be waving to and I saw her, not waving back.
After a little waving, mostly by him, they got together and that leg waving stopped but another leg waving started, the pair of legs behind the first.
Anyway, long story short, they got together and then parted. She went about grooming herself and he started waving those front legs again.
Sound familiar?
Ant Hunter
These little Jumpers are the kittens of the spider world, so apparently playful at times the way they hop, skip and jump about in what looks like playful abandon. Not the times depicted here though. Here they are hunting ants, successfully. Ants will often travel in a line on an open surface and there you will find these spiders, waiting in the wings to pick off strays, or pouncing on the line and carrying an ant off to eat it in quiet.
These lines of ants are often guarded by soldier ants, big and ferocious fellows. But even they can become a Jumpers dinner, as you can see here – one has an ant nearly as big as itself.
Cute? Not to an ant.
March/Horse Fly – Flower Feeder2
A colourful little beauty this. Usually blood suckers, but this one feeds on nectar. I’ll have to remember that so there is no unnecessary wariness, if there is a next time.
This one came in through the open window one night so I trapped it. Can’t have a big fella like this roaming the house at night. Next morning I got a few shots of him – I think – on some carnations from upstairs then gave him a little honey and water before letting him go outside. As soon as I let him go he landed on the red flower you see in the last picture.
Then off he lazily flew, into the wild yonder.
Ant
These ants have been occupying a sunny spot at the top of an unused entrance to a building in the local scout camp. Two kinds, big and smaller. The activity was feverish. The pic with the two kinds touching is a momentary exchange, not a fight. Each day I went there was a different bull ant on the highest position, each time with parts missing, a foot, a leg, antennae. The bulls had one posture, jaws agape in ready stance. A domination game perhaps.
Odds 8
The little creatures are everywhere, when you take the time to just look and see. Neon Cuckoo Wasp captured by a black Assassin Bug on the power pole in the car park. Mosquito resting on a yellow flower. A Green Leaf Beetle wandering about the fallen leaves. The Droptail Lizard lying in the sun on the stairway. A Fly blowing bubbles on a leaf in the garden. Some of our tiny relatives, since we all live on the same Earth.
Odds from Roundabouts
It never ceases to amaze me the endless variety of form and colour of the small nature at our feet. It’s everywhere to be seen at different times and yet so few see it.
Cane Toad
This creature was introduced to Aus by industry in ’37 to combat the sugar cane beetles but since it doesn’t fly it didn’t do a very good job. It has done a very good job eating or killing everything else though. It has its own integrity.
Ichneumon Wasp
This is a rare instance when the wasp actually stops long enough for a few shots. The relative cold probably had something to do with it. Then a car backfired in the distance and she was gone.
Mating Beetles
Making little Green Leaf beetles.
The Colours of Oz 