For so work the honey bees

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Rachael

For so work the honey bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home;
Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.

William Shakespeare, Henry V, I.ii

Slow and steady

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Rachael

With perseverance the snail reached the ark.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven –
All’s right with the world!

Robert Browning

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One image three ways

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Rachael

I like this slightly arty shot of a cricket in my garden. I like the way the cricket barely emerges from its environment. But which version of the image do you like best? The cool-colour version above. Or the warmer version below.

Or the minimal black and white?

Raynox newbie

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Rachael

I have a new toy, a Raynox DCR-250 super macro conversion lens. It is a cheap alternative to a macro lens but I am actually using it to get even closer than my macro lens. It clips onto my 100mm macro to let me get super close.

Depth of field at these sorts of magnifications is ridiculously thin and to get the most out of it you need a tripod and flash. So I doubt it will be an oft-used piece of kit for my favourite genre, natural light bug macros outdoors.

Still, it did give me a lot of fun yesterday afternoon putting it through its paces trying to capture something of the very smallest critters in my garden. The red-eyed fly below is smaller than an aphid.

The devil in the dark

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Rachael

Regular readers will know that I have been following the antics of some speckled bush cricket nymphs in my garden. From cute first hatchling through inquisitive early instar stages to greedy adolescence and approaching adulthood. And what do I get as a reward for bringing them fame and adulation? Plants with holes! I counted at least 25 of the devils out there yesterday, nibbling away at my carefully nurtured dahlias. Have they no gratitude? The youth of today (sigh)! So a suitably more sinister image of one of the little monsters today. And now I have a dilemma…

Whoever struggles with monsters might watch that he does not thereby become a monster. And when you stare into an abyss for a long time, the abyss also stares into you.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

Mr Fantastic

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Rachael

The bush cricket nymphs continue to grow and show off their long and very flexible legs! The Reed Richards of the cricket kingdom?

Well, hello little fella!

Here, one is eating its cast off skin. No waste in Nature.

My earlier bush cricket posts are here, here and here.

Summer squared

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Rachael

Something different, hot off the presses today. I had fun making this abstract mosaic from shots of grass blowing in the breeze.

And sing with us, away, Winter, away!
Come, Summer, come the sweet seasoun and sun …

James I of Scotland, The Kingis Quair

Yeehaa!

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Rachael

Weevils enjoying a little recreational rodeo.

“Do you come here often?”
“Only in the mating season.”

Spike Milligan, The Goon Show

Reigate

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Rachael

We spent yesterday in Reigate, a quiet market town in North Surrey. The only camera I had with me was my iPhone so, in the true tradition (if there has been enough time for there to be a tradition) of iPhoneography, I have lightly edited the images on my iPad and uploaded directly from there.

Reigate has the remains of a castle so I get to continue my series on castles. The castle was built in the eleventh century and fell into decay in the seventeenth. None of the stonework remains but the earthworks have been turned into a pretty, and peaceful garden.

Underneath the castle gardens is a network of caves. The most well-known, The Barons’ Cave, is reputed to have been a meeting place for the barons who devised the Magna Carta. The stone pyramid in the top photographs guards an underground
sallyport.

The few remains of the castle were removed in 1777 when the land was converted into a garden. The mock medieval gateway was built at that time.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day in Reigate. The town has a lot of interesting independent shops, a fine array of eateries and an Everyman cinema (in which we saw Prometheus). Best of all, the sun shone: a rare event here this summer!

Trapped

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Rachael

An aphid caught in a web awaits its doom.

Dar’st thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension;

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III.i

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