The little bug that could

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Rachael

Welcome to the second instalment of my three-part series on the aphid, ant, ladybird relationship. If you don’t like ants, look away now!

Less than .5% of the world’s species of ant live in the UK. It is mostly too cold and wet for them, something not difficult to believe given the spring we’re having! By far the most common is the black garden ant, Lasius Niger.

These tough, fast, little ants live in colonies of up to 15,000. They eat insects, seeds, nectar and even the bodies of their own dead.

As illustrated in an earlier post, they have a particular liking for the sticky honeydew secreted by aphids and will climb bushes to “herd” aphids, protecting them from predators. They obtain the honeydew by stroking the aphids with their feelers!

On certain still, warm days each summer, males and queens will emerge from the nest and take to the wing, mating in flight. The queens then shed their wings and start new nests. The males, their sole purpose fulfilled (if they are lucky), die. Environmental cues lead to all the nests in a locality releasing their males and queens at the same time. This enables inter-nest mating, ensuring genetic diversity.

The study of ants is called myrmecology. This made me think of Achilles’ myrmidons so I looked up the etymology of the word and learned my new thing for the day! According to myth, Zeus made the Myrmidons from a nest of ants. Another meaning of myrmidon is a faithful follower who carries out orders without question.

“Next time you’re found, with your chin on the ground,
There’s a lot to be learned, so look around.

Just what makes that little old ant
Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant?
Anyone knows an ant, can’t,
Move a rubber tree plant.

But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes,
He’s got high, apple pie, in the sky hopes.

So any time you’re gettin’ low,
‘Stead of letting go,
Just remember that ant,
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant.”

“High Hopes” Cahn/Van Heusen

Aphids of every hue

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Rachael

A few weeks ago, I told a story about a conflict between three species of minibeast in my garden. This week, I thought I might take three days to focus on each of those same three species individually. I promise to do something non-buggy on Thursday.

I am starting with the bottom of the food chain, the lowly aphid. The top image is hot off the presses, taken in my garden yesterday. We actually had some sun this weekend! Back to rain today though. Anyway, I call it “Bringing up Baby”. Babysitting is such hard work, especially when the toddler will keep running away from you!

Aphids are a lot less attractive in numbers, especially when sucking the life force from one of my rose bushes. The picture above makes me think of sci-fi and contagion-style movies. Euch.

Still, aphids are a vital part of the garden food chain, like the wildebeests or antelopes of the African plains. I call the shot above “The Bubble Trap”. A blackfly is caught in a double trap of web and water droplet.

Here’s another capture of the same doomed aphid:

All that is left of the aphid in the next shot is a single wing:

Singly, however, the greenfly remains an unexpectedly graceful creature, its delicate form suggesting vulnerability:

“He didn’t want to stop cutting, and hacked away so furiously that he shook with the vibrations, wedged between his two levels of rock, like a greenfly caught between the pages of a book which threatened to slam suddenly shut.”
Emile Zola, Germinal, trans. Peter Collier

Tomorrow, it’s the aphid farmer’s turn, the garden ant. I bet you can’t wait. 😉

Bee fly

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Rachael

The subject of my natural history post for this week is the bee fly or bombylius major. This bee-mimic is common in my part of the world (Southern England) in early spring.

Its rather imposing appearance can lead people to assume that it is dangerous but it cannot harm you: that long proboscis is merely a very efficient nectar guzzler. In fact, I think the bee fly is rather cute. Just me, perhaps.

They certainly look quite cute on the wing, with their spindly legs flying out Superman style from the chubby body. However, while they may not be harmful to humans, they have a sinister life cycle if you happen to be a bee.

This bee mimic lays its eggs by the nests of solitary bees. When the larva hatches, it uses a crown of spines on its head to batter its way into the cell of the bee pupa and slowly sucks the pupa dry.

Afterwards, the gorged larva pupates and finally emerges in its final form by battering its way out of the cell.

Needless to say, I have not been able to take photographs of the full life-cycle, just the disingenuously cute, fluffy fly.

For some more (and frankly better) pictures and two poems (yes!) about bee flies, visit my friend Giles Watson’s Flickr photostream. The second poem (which treats the life cycle) appears in a comment there.

PS Some of the images appear pixelated here. They do not in the files I uploaded. If anyone knows what I’m doing wrong, please can you help? It’s a shame for them not to appear their best.

Leap of faith

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Rachael

A tiny spider pauses…

…before parachuting away on a strand of silk.

Feeling waspish

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Rachael

There are many different types of wasp in the UK. The one we all know is the common wasp (above), the ruin of many a barbecue in summer and autumn. I call this shot, “Mirror, mirror on the wall”.

Common wasps are social wasps, living in colonies. There are also many different types of solitary wasp, that dig burrows and, very often, have a parasitic life-cycle, such as the wasp in the next picture.

Your eyes are not deceiving you; this wasp is indeed pulling the legs off a spider! It is a type of spider wasp of the family pompilidae. (Identification for an amateur is not straightforward but I think this is probably pompilus cinereus.) They find a spider, paralyse it with their sting, and drag it back to their burrow. Then they lay an egg inside the spider. Once the egg hatches, the larva eats the spider alive, from the inside out. Sometimes, if the spider is too big for the burrow, the wasp will pull its legs off. The expression, “feeling waspish”, takes on new significance!

Some wasps have an elegance about them, like the slim-waisted society belle below. Hence the expression, “waspish figure”.

I think this is probably a type of digger wasp. This one has a damaged wing, which is why it stuck around long enough for me to get a shot off. Do not be fooled, however, by its stylish gown and slender grace. If my identification is correct, this beguiling debutante is parasitic too; the female lays its eggs in flies. Waspish in appearance and intent.

Grizzlies

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Rachael

In Summer 2010, we spent three weeks in British Columbia, Canada. The standout highlight of the trip was the three days we spent at Knight Inlet Lodge in Glendale Cove.

The floating lodge is deep within Knight Inlet, one of the many huge inlets that serrate the coast of this beautiful province. It can only be reached by float plane or boat.

Like most visitors to the Lodge, we travelled by float plane from Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Living just outside London, England, we don’t get to travel this way very often so our stay was off to an exciting start before we’d even arrived!

The views were superb despite the weather; it rains a lot here.

On arrival, after a short introduction to the guides and resident dogs, we were soon in a boat out in the Cove scouring the banks for signs of bears. Although we were too early for the salmon run when bears gather in numbers to fish and can be watched from hides, there was a good chance of finding some foraging on the shoreline.

We saw some mergansers, a kingfisher, several curious seals and a loon before a call came over the radio to return to base immediately; bears had been spotted near the lodge!

I wasn’t prepared for how breathtaking it was to see these wonderful creatures in the wild.

We watched this female, ‘christened’ Bella by the guides, and her three cubs as they foraged along the shoreline. Although we were separated by several feet of water, I felt very aware of my proximity to this powerful mother, who would not hesitate to defend her cubs.

We would be lucky enough to watch Bella and her cubs several more times during our stay as well as two other grizzly families. Wildlife abounds in Glendale Cove; we also saw a black bear and some black-tailed deer.

There were many bald eagles and herons as well as numerous smaller species of bird, including swallows who nested in the eaves of the lodge.

Not to be outdone, some smaller mammals shared the limelight. We saw mink on the shore and the lodge was frequently visited by a cheeky band of river otters.

For a change of pace, we could bear-watch from kayaks.

Or go on a guided forest hike. Here, my town-bred daughter can’t quite believe I am letting her stir her hot chocolate with a twig!

The evenings were spent socialising in the bar or enjoying entertaining and interesting talks by the friendly and knowledgeable guides. We had read on Tripadvisor that the food was great but it was even better than we expected.

Knight Inlet Lodge is a founding member of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association of British Columbia (CBVA). The CBVA campaigns to ban the currently legal trophy hunting of grizzly bears in British Columbia. Watching these magnificent creatures in the wild, I could not imagine ever being able to shoot one with anything other than a camera.

It was a privilege seeing these animals in their natural habitat. To be able to share an experience like this with my children, and to hear them talk about it still, is even better.

Hopeful green

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Rachael

‘A child said What is the grass? fetching it to one with full hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of the hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark,
and say Whose?…
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.’

Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’ (1855), 6

April has been a month of rain for us here in England. As I travelled in a taxi through Hyde Park this morning I noticed how gloriously green everything was, drenched in refreshing spring showers. So today’s post is simply a celebration of green.
The top image was taken in the churchyard of St. James’s, Weybridge.

In flight entertainment

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Rachael

One of my photographic obsessions in the last couple of years has been capturing insects in flight. Particularly bees and hover flies. I have by no means mastered this art yet. But I have bagged a few shots that I like and I have learned a few things along the way.

I suspect that the best way to get really superb shots is to find a flower that the insects frequent, set up the tripod, lock focus on the flower and use a remote shutter release to fire off a load of shots every time a bug comes near. I can see the attraction of this laid back approach. I imagine a deck chair, comfy cushions, a cool glass of Pimms… But you would need that kind of still summer’s day that only happens in this country in Evelyn Waugh novels. Even the slightest breeze can move a flower. So, ditch the tripod.

I prefer to shoot flying bugs in shutter priority, set to 1/640 or 1/800, with the camera set to AI servo and continuous shooting. Any faster than 800 and you risk freezing the wings. I prefer blurry wings. They’re moving, and I want my picture to show that. Compare the two shots below:

The first shot is probably better quality but I prefer the shimmering wings in the second.

While blurry wings are good, blurry bodies are not, especially eyes. I use centre spot focus; my manual focus skills just aren’t up to the job. If yours are, go for it. For those of us who rely on auto, you should aim to get the centre point over the eye. Yes, it’s tricky. But put in some practice and you will be able to do it. Softness in the rest of the insect matters less if the eyes are clear.

I won’t use flash; I don’t want to ‘bug’ the bugs. So having such a fast shutter speed reduces my depth of field somewhat, or a lot! Therefore, I always use ISO 400 for these shots. That gets me more depth. Really bright direct sunlight that would allow a lower ISO is usually fairly ugly light anyway. On the upside, a wider aperture means nicer backgrounds, smooth and undistracting.

Background is half the battle. Compare the next two shots. In the first the bee is nice and sharp but the background is ugly. In the second, the bee is frankly too soft but you just have to love that fresh green background. Which do you think is the more pleasing image?

Oh, and I mustn’t forget to mention metering. I use spot metering. I want to expose for the bug and it is too small in the frame for the camera to expose for it in the default, evaluative metering mode.

Finally, it helps to learn a bit about the habits of your models. After a while of crouching in the bushes with ants crawling up your trousers you will start to notice that, while honey bees tend to approach flowers in a business-like straight line, bumble bees live up to their name and bumble all over the place. Certain hover flies, particularly the marmalade fly, hover beautifully, while others zoom around oblivious to the fact that they are supposed to be hover flies and are frankly not worth your trouble until they settle.

Finally, be prepared to get very funny looks from a lot of people if attempting any of this in public. Good luck!

Many thanks to The Goat that Wrote for the idea for today’s post.

PS Before someone asks, I use a 100mm macro lens on a full frame camera. But you could do this just as well with a cropped sensor and another lens.
And, no, I have never been stung.

PPS I have shown some of the images in small size because of problems with downloading really long blog entries. All of the images stand up to scrutiny at a larger size. You’re just going to have to trust me on that 😉

Not-so-solitary bees

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Rachael

At this time of year there are already many bees busy in the garden but not yet many honey bees. The bumble bees are around, fat, noisy and fairly recognisable. But there are also a lot of solitary bees. In Britain we have more than 250 types of solitary bee, bees that have single nest cells rather than communal hives.
With so many types, I am not going to try to identify the subjects of today’s photographs. To know more, try here. Suffice it to say that solitary bees do have to get together occasionally to obey one particular biological imperative!