Art in the Garden

Sometimes my two major interests, Art and Nature, come together as with this red bug on part of an ornamental bird feeder that has corroded to some beautiful colours. The second image intrigued me until I realised that it is the result of an insect chewing through areas of the flower bud which is pleated much as we do to make paper cuts (eg paper doilies). Otherwise a few more gems from my garden including a Wolf Spider species with very newly hatched spiderlets on its back, male and female Large-headed Resin Bee plus one in the jaws of a Labyrinth Spider and Hummingbird hawkmoth eye - the species list will be very long by the end of this season.

Action at Lackford Lakes

A very enjoyable day at Lackford Lakes with CCC Nature Group. I concentrated on two 'projects': macro with wide angle lens (to follow!) and action shots of birds and insects. The Dragonflies and the Hummingbird Hawkmoth were taken at 1/4000th except the first image, at 1/1000th - surprised that there is little difference in wing movement (the Darter was on electronic shutter and shows the bend in the wing). The Migrant Hawkers were hovering for quite extended periods in the strong breeze! The bird were at 1/2000th - I do like the levitating Nuthatch. The Hummingbird Hawkmoth was quite worn around the tail area but was still very manoeuvrable. The eyes are wonderful - I am on an insect vision project at the moment so very useful captures.

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

 This wonderful moth visited our garden and put on a great display The light was not great being under an apple tree so I could only get  shutterspeeds of a 1/2000th (most) and 1/1000th (images 2 and 7). The body is kept amazingly stable with very flexible wing movements

Switzerland. Speed of Hummingbird Hawkmoth's Wings

I had a couple of opportunities to photograph these amazing moths - in the middle of the day in Murren and later on the geraniums from my balcony. The first one is at 1/8000th second and the wings have just about been frozen. The wings in the second image show some movement at 1/5000th, more at 1/4000th and by 1/2000th they are completely blurred. The images on the balcony against the evening light were 1/3500 and 1/8000 respectively.