More tiny secrets

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Rachael

I thought I’d follow up yesterday’s post, The secret world of the smallest things, with more of the most miniscule critters in my garden. They are little more than moving dots to the naked eye but the macro lens and cropping reveals another world.

Possibly a very small sort of wasp.

I am not going to be able to identify some of these tiny creatures. I know when I am out of my depth! I am content just to enjoy them, and their colourful landscape.

Definitely a midge.

Some are not so welcome, or pretty. Don’t bite me! But isn’t the sumach leaf lovely?

Uphill is hard work!

I promise no insects tomorrow.

The secret world of the smallest things

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Rachael

Misty morning

As Autumn sets in and the larger, more showy insects start to disappear, my macro lens turns to the smallest creatures, so small that I can only see the details by photographing them and cropping. Each of these critters is much smaller than they appear here, hardly noticeable as they go about their secret lives.

Tightrope

Carrying your prey across a tightrope of the thinnest grass stem is just showing off.

Golden grasses hide a wealth of miniature life

I like to show these critters with plenty of space around them, to show how very small they are. And their landscape can sometimes be as intriguing as the insects themselves.

Small but deadly

Beware the silken hammock

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Rachael

A beautifully woven hammock of silk catches the light. Inside, a tiny green spider awaits its next meal.

When I first posted this I identified it, rather hesitatingly, as araniella cucurbitina, the cucumber green orb spider. I suspected a female given the size of that shadow. The males are more streamlined:

However, I now think the spiders in this post may be nigma walckenaeri. Any experts around? There are several rather pretty spiders lurking among the turning leaves of my sumach tree. I can’t positively identify the next one through all the silk but it may well be another araniella cucurbitina. Or maybe not…

It is definitely spider season here. I wish all the huge ones presently invading my home looked like these instead.

Lighthouse to nowhere

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Rachael

A shot from our trip to Nantucket in August 2011. The guidebook advertised this lighthouse as perched precariously on the cliff edge. ‘Photo op!’, thought I and dragged the family out there only to find that it had been moved! It is now situated in some fairly uninspiring and very safe scrub. At least the sky was interesting enough to make it worth converting this shot to black and white, pushing the blues towards black and the vegetation towards white to create a pseudo-infrared effect.

Mystery river fly

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Rachael

I found this beautiful creature sheltering from the rain under one of the curlicues of our wrought-iron gate. It is some sort of river fly but I haven’t conclusively identified it more specifically. Any river fly experts out there? It has two long tails, unlike the common mayfly which has three, and apparently only one pair of wings. I found it nowhere near a river so I an guessing it is one of the river flies that will inhabit standing water. Anyway, whatever it is, it’s a beauty! Here’s a close-up:

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Rachael

… For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things…

William Wordsworth, ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ (1798), ll.88-102

Basking wasp

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Rachael

A wasp, glimpsed through the Autumn foliage of a sumach tree, basks in the last rays of the setting sun.

Incredible flying bees

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Rachael

Despite the drop in temperatures over the last couple of days, the hardy carder bees have still been out and about, seemingly tougher than the honey bees who have almost disappeared. Believe it or not, this geranium is called ‘Jolly Bee’!

They are still happily visiting carder bee heaven. I can now be more specific than my earlier identification of it as a member of the mint family; it is Agastache ‘Blackadder’.

This one isn’t flying, but I liked the light so included it anyway.

There were a few bumble bees about this morning. This is the first time I have seen them feeding on the solanum jasminoides flowers. Perhaps they are less fussy at this time of year when other flowers are fading. Look at that pollen sac! Amazing that it can fly at all.

The first day of Autumn

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Rachael

This week there has been a nip in the air. There are suddenly fewer winged insects about and a first-day-of-the season safari round the garden this morning yielded some distinctly Autumnal sights. This harvestman was crouching on a fading rudbeckia flower.
The lychnis coronaria have gone to seed. I took a quick photograph before shaking the seeds liberally over the border. They are very reliable self-seeders in my garden, even colonising the lawn given half a chance.
The hollyhock seed heads are opening. I do love the way the seeds are wedged in – they remind me of oysters.
Despite the chill, the speckled bush crickets are still about. This male stared at me rather belligerently, I thought.

All these shots were taken at 3,200 ISO. Not too shabby. The new camera passes the ISO test.

Tiny spider busy at work

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Rachael

Why is nothing ever easy? My new camera arrived today but did I spend the afternoon putting it through its paces? No, I spent it trying to sort out all the pesky patches and downloads needed to enable my software to read the new camera’s RAW files. Anyway, I got there in the end. So this is its debut shot. To give some idea of the scale, this spiderling is considerably smaller than a garden ant and the flower is a tiny alpine campanula.

Focused Moments

Photography by RACHAEL TALIBART

Monthly Archives: September 2012