Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
My Primary Site …
I no longer post to this site.
If you want to see my current work go here – Nature’s Place
For my take on the process go here – Macro Illustrated
I wonder how this works?
It’s warm these days and not so easy to capture a shot of these very fast moving bees, especially out in the wild. So I wait for them at dusk and watch for where they land, and fly and land again. It’s never as simple as taking one spot and sticking to it. They need to settle in like any creature, in their way, moving to and fro until they are right. No more disturbance, inside, and ready for the night.
So, because the temperature often determines how active our bees are, there is a very short window of opportunity, two of them with natural light, and the best one is at dusk.
Waiting to the last minute is an option, or working what I can from a certain darkness, maneuvering the roost for the BG as I go, until I get something that is not the same as hundreds…
View original post 46 more words
It was a few weeks ago now that she showed up on the morning rounds of my little nature. There were still some of the little people/creatures to be found in the fields and woods as the winter, such as it is here, hadn’t yet taken a firm hold. Grass was still growing and leaves hadn’t fallen, not much of either. An in-between time you could say, not yet too cold for long enough to drive everything to death or shelter.
The field of long grasses was beginning to dry out with few of nature’s flowers, man’s weeds, still blooming here and there. Little yellow and red striped bells of beauty to me, shining here and there at the tops of the now yellowing threads of the earth’s summer blanket. Calling out to the remaining little people, come to me, here I am, just for you my love. Drink deep…
View original post 209 more words
First G1 shots
The best of the bunch.
Maybe the best too, sleeping together – no kidding. ((:
I like a lot about this camera and lens. It’s light, has a large articulating hi res LCD for MF – was a breeze – but in the wrong place, full time liveview, better IQ – less noise than FZ, but there’s too much to do to make it work as I am used to with the FZ50 + Raynox Achromats.
The G1 + 35mm is 1: 1 on an 18mm wide sensor. The FZ + R250+150 is 1.2 : 1 on a 7mm wide sensor. To get equivalent magnification on the G1, which I want, I’d need more than 2.5 : 1. Can’t see it happening and staying small and light for one handed work.
I am open to suggestions though, if anyone has any for higher mags that keeps me light and small with a working distance of about 2 inches.
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.
Odds 9
The Leaf Cutter Bee cutting a rose leaf to help make its nest. The Midge resting on a yellow flower. An Assassin Bug eating a Midge. Grasshopper riding a flower in the wind. Fly, tasting a leaf. Every one as alive and active as you or me.
The Colours of Oz 