| Photojournal
- 28 June 2006
Going
small
| I hadn't
been out taking photos for nearly two weeks, so on Wednesday the
28th, after some appointments after work, I put my macro lens on
my camera and went out around my condo to see if I could find something
to take photos of. One of our strata council members, Jodi, had
been on a gardening mission lately, and had put some new flowers
in, so I started with one of those. Unfortunately, the sun had already
getting a little low, so the courtyard was in shadow. I took photos
anyway. My pal Jodi tells me these are Astible japonica "Koln";
a.k.a. Japanese Spirea. |
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| Now, you
may have noticed the ant in that photo; I certainly did. So I moved
in closer and concentrated on the little fellow. |
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| Deciding
that the lack of sunlight was a bad thing, I went out of the courtyard
to the river side of my building. On both sides of the walkway out,
there's a little flower bed. These beds were still in the sun. Looking
around in them, I found this really neat little guy...a very small
grasshopper. |
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| He was 10,
maybe 13mm long. He's an immature (nymph) Migratory Grasshopper
(Melanoplus sanguinipes). The adults, of course, have long
wings (this guy has wing buds but no wings), and they grow to about
twice the length of this one. These grasshoppers are a major agricultural
pest, but their markings sure are neat. Here's another shot, from
a higher angle. |
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From his length and
the number of segments on his attennae, I'd wager that this grasshopper
is in his fourth instar, which means that he has molted three
times. He has two more molts to go to reach adulthood.
But all that is stuff
that I learned after. While I was out there, I was just enjoying
this cool, highly patterned little bug. He didn't seem to enjoy
me too much, though, because he didn't stick around for all that
long.
Once he had hopped
off, I looked for other subjects. I found this blue flower, of
which there are many in this flowerbed. But this one had ants
on it, and the others didn't.
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| I tried
to get up close and personal with some of the ants, but they move
really quickly, making focussing a difficult task. Autofocus isn't
good enough, and I need a lot more practice with manual focus. But
at least I was out there practicing. |
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| I walked
down the quay a bit, and stopped when I saw this Barn Swallow perched
on a rail. |
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That rail was directly
in front of a woman who was sitting on a bench reading a book.
I tried to warn her about how sneaky these little swallows can
be, but she just sorta looked at me like I was crazy.
Nearby, I found some
white flowers and was taking photos of them when a ladybug poked
her head out of one of them.
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That ladybug is an
Asian Multicolored Ladybug (Harmonia axyridis), the most
common kind we have around here. Now, that's a bit of a shame,
because they're an invasive species, outcompeting our indigenous
ladybugs. Invasive or not, they're pretty cute.
On my way back towards
my home, I found this long greenish fly. I think he's a Crane
Fly of some sort, but I'm not certain. He almost looks like a
giant mosquito.
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| I also found
two other flies on my way home. The first is this common little
guy, a Bottle Fly of some sort. |
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| And this
second guy is a bit more uncommon. This is a Snipe Fly, probably
in the genus Therevidae. |
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I had to ask around
to find that out, and that's part of what made this a really neat
day of photography: all these little beasts that I didn't know
much about presented me with motivation and the opportunity to
learn some cool insect stuff. I really enjoyed that, so I think
I'll be keeping my eye out for a lot more of these little
photo opportunities.
Going home,
Tom
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