Category Archives: nature

Garden critters

Posted on by
14
bombylius major

Bee fly again

As the deadline for my dissertation inexorably draws nearer, and with school holidays approaching even faster, I am having to put photography on the back burner, again. But it is bug season! Not fair! I can’t ignore all that gorgeous mini-beast action in my garden completely. So here are a few shots grabbed in illicit moments away from my studies.

insect macro

Capsid bug

These capsid bugs normally hang out on oak trees. Luckily, my neighbour has a whopper of an oak tree so we get a lot of extra bug action. Oak trees rock.

insect macro

Really very tiny anonymous fly

This fly is so small I can’t make out the detail until I grab a macro shot and view it at native resolution on my desktop. It’s too small even for my insect field guide, so I can offer no ID.  Do step up if you know what it is!

insect

What am I?

This might be a moth. It too is very small, but rather cute, in my opinion.

I have a few more shots to share but I am going to have to be strict with myself about spending time on-line for the next few weeks. So sorry if I don’t manage to visit your site for a while. But, come September, there will be no stopping me!

Defying gravity

Posted on by
8

insect macro

On Tuesday, I waxed eloquent, well enthusiastic at least, about my new toy, the Fuji X-E1, but there is one thing it can’t do: decent macros of the very smallest critters in my garden. There my DSLR and macro lens rule supreme. This is an immature capsid bug showing off its gravity defying skills on a lavender leaf.

The return of Specky

Posted on by
2

insect
Last summer Focused Moments was speckled with posts featuring the speckled bush crickets (leptophyes punctatissima) in my garden. With our very late spring here I hadn’t seen any until this weekend. But never fear, they are back! Here an early instar stares me down from between two new camellia leaves.

Some of last year’s specky posts are here, here, here, here, here, here and here.