Posts in Category: butterflies and insects
English Peacock
I am always delighted to get to England while the Peacock butterflies are flying, and they are flying in great numbers among the flowers at Rutland Water this year.
This is a shot from outside the Optics Marquee at the British Bird Fair, taken with the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
Eye-candy! Clamp-tipped Emerald
This is one those encounters that keeps me looking for and at dragon and damselflies. I will never become an Odonata expert. There is just too much to learn, but I totally enjoy photographing the species I find around home and in my travels. This is, I am pretty sure, the Clamp-tipped Emerald. There are lots of Emerald Dragonflies…all with the characteristic green eyes. According to Odonata Central, the Clamp-tipped is not recorded for York County Maine, so I am going to have to check my ID, but the male appendages on this bug are pretty distinctive, and everything else about it is right.
Whatever it is though, it is certainly an amazing creature. And it does not hurt that it chose to perch among the red berries either! Emmons Preserve (Kennebunk Land Trust) in Kennebunkport Maine.
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent field of view from about 8 feet…handheld. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Tickled. Happy Sunday!
So, I have been in Virginia for a week of marketing meetings, with limited photo opportunities. I got a very itchy shutter button finger! First thing Saturday morning I gassed up my scooter and headed out for a photoprowl. First stop, the Kennebunk Plains to check the Blazing Star bloom…more on that one day soon…and then on to Old Falls Pond and the stretch of the Mousam River there to check for dragonflies, etc. etc.
At Old Falls Pond I was delighted to find a stand of Cardinal Flower. I am pretty sure I have never seen it in Maine before, though it was common in the Southwest when I lived there. I find that it is actually native to the East Coast, from Canada to Florida. The southwest variety is a different species, though essentially the same flower. It is, of course, a stunning plant. In the right habitat it is both tall and showy, and there is nothing in nature quite so red as the red of the blooms. I was on my way over to the stand, which was right on the edge of the river, with my camera all set to macro, when I saw the Slaty Skimmers and Blue Dashers buzzing around it. Wouldn’t it be perfect, I thought, as I drew closer, if a dragonfly landed on the Cardinal lower…and just then a Slaty Skimmer did! Of course I had the wrong camera in hand, and the wrong setting on the camera I had. By the time I fumbled through menus and got the setting changed, the bug was gone. There is one good thing about Slaty Skimmers (all Skimmers) though. They return to a favored perch many times. I got the camera set (I did not dare to take time to get out my long zoom…and I was really too close anyway…so I stuck with the Samsung Smart Camera’s limited reach), and the dragonfly did indeed return and pose on the Cardinal Flower for a few shots. After I had my shots, I got out the Canon SX50HS, but, though I waited 10 minutes, and returned to the stand of Cardinal Flowers on my way back upstream and waited some more, the Slaty Skimmer never perched on the flowers again.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. Macro focus setting. 416mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 d@ 1/90th @ ISO 400. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Google Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday thought: I sometimes think our creator God has to enjoy the delight we show when we are surprised by the unlikely beauty of moments like a Slaty Skimmer perched on Cardinal Flower beside a stream in Southern Maine. These things happen too often to be any kind of accident. And though I do go out consciously and eagerly looking for them, I would not do that without some measure of confidence, based on past experience, that they do happen…that it is reasonable and right to go looking for them. Cardinal Flowers. Blue dragonflies. What kind of theory of randomness would bring them together just as I walked up with a camera in hand? And yet…there it is!
And, honestly, what can you be if not thankful? Okay God. Yes, you got me again. Tickled me good. Thank you.
And doesn’t most of the fun in tickling, belong to the tickler?
Decorated Leaf
The light was lovely by the time I got to the little pond by the office on Tuesday after work and the dragonflies were out in Virginia numbers…lots of Amberwings and more Blue Dashers than you see at three such ponds in Maine. On the other hand that was about it. There were a couple of Slaty Skimmers, but no other “large” flies. Still we takes what we can gets 🙂
This Blue Dasher posed nicely and I love the light in the leaves…in especially like how the dasher is cupped by the light.
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with my usual modifications. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
Monarch in the Glade
The other day while hunting dragonflies along the Mousam river at Old Falls Pond I looked up to see this Monarch sitting on a bush about 10 feet away, perfectly backlit for a shot. In a normal situation that is easy reach for my Canon SX50HS and the 1800mm equivalent I shoot most bugs with, but this was the day I had forgotten the SD card in the Laptop after processing the morning’s images and I was left with only the 18x reach of my Samsung Smart Camera. That is a measly 432mm equivalent field of view. The Samsung does have Intelligent Zoom, which scales back the number of pixels captured rather than enlarging pixels to fill a larger frame and simulate a longer lens. It has two steps: 10mp and 5mp. I ran it up to the end of the 10mp range, which should be something like 600mm equivalent field of view. I am actually quite pleased with the results…not pleased enough to leave my Canon at home on my bug hunts, but pleased enough to be confident that the Samsung will deliver in a pinch, even for the occasional tel-macro.
Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Strange Beauty. Happy Sunday!
Or maybe the beauty of the strange. This Great Golden Digger Wasp was one of many insects enjoying the thistle blooms yesterday at my local dragonfly ponds. It is certainly interesting for its contrasting color alone. And then the textures: furry and hard and gossamer wings. And the form. Those huge black eyes, the waving antennas, and that unlikely waist. None of it is conventionally beautiful, but the sum is certainly eye-catchingly compelling.
I did not always see the beauty in wasps. I am coming to it though, through my study of dragonflies and damselflies. After two years with the Odonata, now I look closely at every bug!
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 1800mm equivalent field if view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday thought. In order to see the beauty of the Great Golden Digger Wasp you have to get beyond the fact that it is a bug. And a wasp at that. For many humans that is simply too much to ask. Our horror of the creepy crawlies is too deep-seated. And any wasp is seem as a potential threat. And I mean, let’s face it: The Great Golden Digger Wasp is just so strange…so alien…so very other. The eyes alone are the stuff of nightmares. And yet I am convinced that being able to see the beauty of this creature is a spiritual “step in the right direction.” It is an act of insight that prepares us to see the beauty in each other…which is, of course, a spiritual necessity. (And sometimes that is no harder than seeing the beauty in this wasp.) On a deeper level it prepares us for the realization that all that lives is beautiful because it lives…because it is an expression of the one creative life that lives all creatures…another expression of the loving life that creates us all.
So take another look at the Great Golden Digger Wasp. Seeing its beauty is a small step, but it is a step in the right direction.
Power Moth on Pickerelweed
I was really hoping, when I took the photo, that this blue pond plant had a lovely name, like Water Hyacinth, and that the bug was, as I originally assumed, a Skipper, so I could have a euphonious title (I head the word “euphonious” on a British TV comedy this week…and I have been, apparently, looking for a excuse to use it :). “Skipper on Water Hyacinth”. Now that is euphonious!
Unfortunately in the interest of accuracy, this is just common Pickerelweed, but, as some compensation, it is a Powder Moth of some kind…so we have some nice alliteration to contribute to a mellifluous title, even if it is not truly euphonious (yes, I have been at the thesaurus trying to find the spelling of euphonious. I always enjoy a little thesauric browsing before breakfast).
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program and Macro focus (as opposed to the Macro Mode). I used Intelligent Zoom which increases the normal 18x zoom on the camera and maintains image quality by reducing the number of pixels captured at higher zoom ratios. This was a 10mp image (down from the native 14mp) at something in the 500mm equivalent field of view range. I then cropped it slightly for increased image scale. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Halloween Pennant
I have been looking for a Halloween Pennant for several years now. I mean, who could see them in the dragonfly guides and not want to see one, and photograph one, in real life. They are at the extreme north east of their range here on the coast in Southern Maine, but they are listed on the Odonata Central list for York County. I had hope. But I had no bug! Until last weekend when I found a single specimen at Roger’s Pond along the Mousam River in Kennebunk. Roger’s Pond is not nearly as productive as the Quest Ponds when it comes to Odonata, but I have found several dragons and a few damsels there that I have yet to see anywhere else.
I went back yesterday on my lunch-hour scooter prowl, and there was a second Halloween Pennant…this time in better light and closer, perching on the tallest stalks left in the mowed margin of the pond instead of on rushes out in the water. I know it is a second specimen because the first I saw was slightly worn…with an obvious notch out of one wing, and the colors somewhat faded. Yesterday’s bug was fresh and spectacular. What more could any odonatate ask for. (Yes, in my secret life, I an the Odonatator! 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Hand-held of course. Transferred to my Samsung Galaxy S4 via the RavPower WiFi disk and card reader, and then processed in PicSay Pro. (I am getting ramped up to spend two weeks in Europe without my laptop.)
Wet Rose Visitor
I went out early on Saturday, just to the yard, to see what a day and night of steady, and sometimes hard, rain had done to the flowers, and to poke around generally looking for photo-ops in the lovely early light. The rain drops clinging to the rose petals, of course, just had to be done. It was not until processing the image that I saw the Visitor. It seems like, this year, you can hardly take a flower shot without catching an insect of some kind. Good year for the bugs! I believe this is a tiny Hoverfly of one kind or another.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Telephoto Macro at 432mm equivalent field of view from about 5 feet. f5.8 @ 1/180th @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Cropped slightly for scale.
Awesomeness on wings!
You might remember from yesterday’s Sunday Thought post, that I was about to set out on my scooter in search of whatever awesome I could find…most likely having to do with waterfalls, dragonflies, and deep forest. I was thinking of Emmons Preserve along the Batson River where it tumbles down over some ledges in the forest in Kennebunkport. This time of year, there are Ebony Jewelwings there, one of our most striking damselflies, and you just never know what you will find along the trails that wander down from the dirt road to the river and back through the woods. And I decided, on the ride there, that I would poke around the meadows that boarder the preserve, since the dragonflies are moving away from the water to hunt the fields these summer days.
When I got there, of course, the folks at the Kennebunkport Land Trust, who manage Emmons Preserve, had anticipated me. I had forgotten that they had made a trail around the meadows that surround the Land Trust Office. It was perfect: a nice wide mown strip along the edge of the meadows, all the way around, with little side trails surrounding isolated copses, or up along the edge of a little pond I had not known was there. There were lots of dragonflies: Meadowhawks mostly, but a good variety, including a Mosaic Darner (that’s a family of dragonflies) that I have yet to positively identify.
And there was this amazing butterfly. I was well over 2/3s of the way around the meadows and had seen it in flight many times. Big and orange and very fritilleryish. I had about despaired of its ever landing, when I came back out of a side trail to the forest on the far side of the far meadow and found it on the Knapweed.
I believe it is a Great Spangled Fritillery, though it could considerably be an Aphrodite Fritillery. Both are about the same size, and have very similar patterns, and both are possible in southern Maine. I settled on Great Spangled as simply being the more likely.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom.
Oh, and clearly I did find the awesomeness I sought. Lots of dragons…Ebony Jewelwings as expected and a new an new Darner!…Great Spangled Fritillery!…several tiny toads and Wood Frogs, a smorgasbord of mushrooms in odd shapes and all sizes, and the water tumbling down in the dappled light of the deep forest among moss and ferns. Very awesome!