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.
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.
Finally, some Summer weather. The damselflies made the most of it – there were several pairs of these red damselflies mating in my garden yesterday.
A shot from last year of a rosemary beetle. These relatively recent arrivals in the UK may be pretty but they wreak havoc in the garden, especially the herb border. One shouldn’t anthropomorphise but I can’t help interpreting this one’s expression as more belligerent than guilty. Perhaps it is thinking of Princess Anne’s famous riposte:
You are a pest, by the very nature of that camera in your hand.
A selection of bug macros taken this spring in my garden.
Now that I have noticed these moss spore capsules, I can’t seem to stop snapping them. Once again, getting really close courtesy of my 100mm macro lens with Raynox 250 attached.
A waking fly greets the new day.
“A day is a miniature eternity.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Believe every day that has dawned is your last.” – Horace
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.-James Russell Lowell, ‘The First Snow-Fall’
I would dearly love to photograph butterflies in flight but this is no easy task. Their flight path is ridiculously erratic and their wings flap right over their heads making focus on the eyes almost impossible.
It’s teasing me
I tried to capture this one for a long time one day last summer. I can almost imagine it’s looking at me thinking: shall I, shan’t I?
Seriously dodgy, but it’s a start
This is the best shot I got that day. Yes, it’s not terribly good, but at least you can tell it’s a butterfly 😉 I will try again this year. Although I have planted for insects, my garden sees very few butterflies, but a wildflower park has recently been planted not too far away and it will hopefully be open to the public for the first time this spring. Come on Spring, hurry up!
Dartmoor on New Year’s Day
Well, I suppose I could come up with some tenuous link between today’s post and Christmas, if I tried really hard. But, instead, I thought I’d share this shot taken in Dartmoor National Park on New Year’s Day. This is for you, Gunta. 😉
While we were away, I rented a new camera, the Sony NEX-7 from the good folk at hireacamera.com. I need a lightweight alternative to my big brick for hiking but I want to try before I buy. Over the next few days I will be sharing some of the images I took and my impressions of this high-end compact system camera.
Focused Moments 