| Photojournal
- 4 June 2007
Catnip detectors
On the 4th, I came home from work a bit early to find some flies hanging out in their usual place at the bottom of the stairs near my condo. I don't know why flies like this particular place, but I find them there more often than I find them in other places (including, thankfully, in my condo).
Seeing flies seemed like a good excuse to go out with my macro lens and lights. So after dropping my briefcase and collecting my gear, I was outside again. One of the flies I had seen had been on a particular leaf, and it was still there when I came back out. I soon saw the reason why the fly hadn't moved: she was busy blowing bubbles. |
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I don't know why flies blow bubbles, although I suspect it has to do with reproduction. Either that, or someone is making a mint selling very small pieces of bubblegum to insects.
I took several shots of the bubble-blower, and while I was working on them, another fly landed on a nearby fleshy surface. By slowly moving that surface in front of my camera, I was able to get a neat side-shot. |
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| Later that evening I had dinner with my friends Jodi and David. We were out on the patio when Jodi noticed quite a few snails in the planting bed beside. So I went home to get my camera to get a few snail shots. The snails were all Cepaea nemoralis, the Grovesnail. They're the most common large snail that we have around the building. I took a lot of shots of them, but I'll just show you one. |
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Aside from getting two snails in close proximity, the thing I liked about that shot is that the right snail has a passenger. There's some tiny critter riding on the outer whorl of his shell; if I had to guess, I'd guess that it's a leafhopper, from its size and oblong shape.
We were still out on the patio when Annie (who lives with Jodi and David) came and sat beside me. Since I had my camera and macro lens, it seemed appropriate that I take a few shots. After all, Annie is a very pretty girl. |
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| And then Max came by, and she needed some attention, too. Max is always looking for attention. Here Jodi is gettting her to pose for me by taunting her with a kitty treat. |
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Cats, being fairly perceptive beings, tend to show up when there are kitty treats around. So it was no surprise that soon we had all four of Jodi and David's cats in close proximity. I siezed the opportunity to get portraits of them all, so that they'll be easy to recognize when you see them.
This bright orangish girl is Annie. |
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| And you probably will recognize Max's black, white, and grey motif from two pictures ago. |
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| The two shy girls, who I haven't gotten many pictures of in the past, are the all-black Patty, shown here... |
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| and the lovely pink-surrounded-by-white Cleo, shown here. Poor Cleo has had her nose in the dry food again. |
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Actually, my original shot of Cleo didn't turn out, and that one was taken a few days later with the assistance of my neighbors.
I was more at my neighbors for visiting with the humans, though, so after I got the kitty portraits I put the camera away for the evening. I hadn't gotten many photos on the day, but the close-ups had turned out very well, so I was quite happy. Besides which, I got to visit with four lovely kitties (and a couple of nice flies, to boot).
He who knows his noses,
Tom
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