Tag Archives: insect

Foxgloves and Other Wildflowers

Just around the corner from our street is a wilder section of the road which currently has a lot of Foxgloves in bloom.  I wandered around with camera in hand to take some photos.  The bees were busy doing there thing but much patience was required because, whichever flower I decided to focus on, the bees concluded another one was what they wanted.  I spent a lot of time only for them to choose the flowers either side of mine!

The bees were not only interested in the foxgloves.  One particularly large looking bee was really going to town on another flower and I wondered whether he had had so much that he might not be able to get airborne again.  I guess rolling off the edge of the flower gained him so airspeed – enough to stagger back into the air!

Bees at Work

The Puget Sound area is currently abloom.  Everywhere you look there are flowers.  It is quite beautiful.  We haven’t seen too many hummingbirds on our feeder recently and it’s not hard to see why when they have so many places to feed right now.  We have some blooms in our front yard too and this means the bees are visiting. I decided to try and use the macro lens to get some shots of them.  My lens is a Tokina unit.  I bought it for the negative scanning process for which it worked well.  However, the focusing drive is not fantastic and it hunts a bit when I use it for things other than manual mode.  However, it is still worth a shot.  Here are a couple of bee shots from the yard.  I can’t go anywhere so I may as well shoot at home!

Caterpillar Convention

If you don’t like bugs, this post isn’t for you.  While up in the Cascades, we saw this web full of caterpillars.  I don’t know the purpose of them being together in these numbers.  Perhaps they are all recently hatched (is that the right term for a caterpillar) and have yet to go on their way or maybe there is another reason.  Either way, there were a lot of them in one place.  If you are a caterpillar predator, I wonder why this was not seen as a buffet?

Busy Bees

The rhododendrons at Meerkerk Gardens weren’t only attracting the people to visit.  It was awash with bees.  The flowers were heaven for these insects and they were on so many of the plants.  The sound of buzzing was a constant accompaniment.  It was also interesting to see the different types of bee.  Some plants had large, fuzzy bees while others had a thinner and shinier species.  Clearly, the bees are very specific about which plant is their favorite.

This Thing is Too Big

This wasp was hanging around on one of the towers when I was at Hyakuri.  It was a rather meaty looking wasp and I figured it would not be a good thing to get on the wrong side of.  Wasps have a reputation for being bad tempered things and, whether this is true or not, I was keen to avoid finding out how this one felt.  I gave it a wide berth just to be sure.  Bees may be cute and useful but wasps just seem like they are going to bring trouble.

Butterflies Everywhere!

We took a wander through the butterfly enclosure at Woodland Park Zoo.  These enclosures require a fair bit of care on the part of the visitor.  They briefed you as you went in what to watch for.  Double doors are at the entrance and exit to stop the butterflies escaping (or at least keep them in the entrance hall if they do manage to sneak out).  You must watch carefully for them.  They will land on you and your stuff but they will often be resting on the ground.  Treading on one will not be considered cool!

I will state right now that I didn’t make much effort to photograph a butterfly in flight.  They are rather fast movers as you quickly discover if you try to photograph them while airborne.  I have tried this before and I wasn’t going to frustrate myself again.  Instead I settled for a few shots of the stationary versions.  I assure you that they were real and alive – this was not a staged creation for me.

Flowers and Bees

wpid9658-AU0E0958.jpgTaking a hike through the hills, sometimes the opportunity to stop and look at stuff is rather welcome.  I was looking at a flower when I saw a bee busily doing what bees do.  I figured a quick shot was in order.  Some of the other flowers looked pretty cool too.  I have no idea what these flowers are.  I thought they looked like bluebells but, since they aren’t blue, maybe they are purplebells?