Filed under: animals, bees, insects, nature, photography | Tags: animals, bees, fly, friends, insects, nature, photography, spiders, wildlife
sigh.
i know.
i haven’t written much lately. busy with the photography business and busy trying (unsuccessfully) to get my life straightened out.
cody bear and pickles are doing great. we just finished a super long walk in the cool fall air.
“why haven’t we heard about insects lately?” you’re asking. right? you’re asking that?
well, i have to admit…my heart wasn’t really into it after buzzy and dr. bee left town.and also, strangely….the bees have disappeared. i’ve always had bees sleeping here. but not for months.
what i did have was 7 black widows on my front porch. i had a friend come over one night after i realized they were there. we launched a wild assault and killed 6 that night. i killed on the day before.
they’re gone now. can’t have them there. too dangerous for the munchkins.
so…fly, mosquito, spider. but no bee.
Filed under: animals, birds, nature, photography, wildlife | Tags: animals, birds, great blue heron, heron, nature, photography, wildlife
i had gone to the lake with a friend to photograph dragonflies when all of a sudden a large shadow could be seen over the water in the background through my viewfinder.
once it landed i walked down to the shore, but he was on to me. he kept wading farther away.
slowly wading. i really wanted to get a picture of him spearing a fish for you guys, but he was not really into giving me a photo op. i got bored, he got farther away, i went back to my dragonflies.
Filed under: animals, beetles, insects, nature, photography, wildlife | Tags: animals, beetles, insects, macro, nature, photography, wildlife
back to the forest this weekend. made it safely home without any rattlesnake encounters. it was actually too cold for them to be out. the mosquitos were horrible.
but the beetle action? the beetle action was sweet!
“help meeeeeee….”
that’s a polyphylla decemlineata. here he is later, chillin’ with one of his buggie friends:
we got there just before dark, set up our area, the guys started grilling while we went and photographed some critters before the light disappeared.
after sunset, r turned the black lights on and soon the moths all came. thousands of critters. we were only interested in one specific moth species.
probably our last blacklighting trip for the year.
Filed under: animals, birds, nature, wildlife | Tags: animals, birds, dogs, nature, photography, wildlife
today is cody bear’s birthday! i’ll be posting more about that later, naturally.
my boss gave us yesterday off for cody bear’s birthday…well, acutally, for 4th of july, but whatever.
so buzzy and i grabbed the macros and embarked on a quest for bees. as i was waiting patiently at some purple flowers for bees to land, i looked to my left and saw this guy…
i love gold finches.
in other bird news, my curved bill thrashers are back. after last month’s tragedy, the adults are back in my yard and trying to rebuild their lives. trying to rebuild their lives at 5:30 in the morning on a saturday when i can sleep late. well,….i’m still glad they’re back!
i better get going. have to feed the dogs then empty some cf cards for this morning’s shoot. a poodle and a schnauzer….
stay tuned for cody bear’s birthday post!
Filed under: animals, border collies, dogs, hiking, life, nature, pets | Tags: animals, border collies, burros, dogs, donkeys, hiking, nature, pets, wildlife
so it was saturday and it was time to take the border collies hiking!
4 miles in the mountains. pickles had a great time and the 3 border collies that went all got along great! there was time for them to frolic in the pine needles before the trek began.
a good time to get away from the heat and enjoy the cool mountain air.
bailey enjoyed playing fetch with pine cones the entire way, pickles got to chase a bird and eight ball just was a good boy, pluggin away.
greenery, wildlife, wildflowers, fresh air.
and…
a burro? “who cares?” says pickles, “my border collie friends are leaving without me!”
….
“can we go again?”
Filed under: bees, insects, nature, photography, wildlife | Tags: agapostemon, bees, ecology, insects, macro, nature, photography, science, wildlife
i can’t believe how lucky i am! for the second year in a row there is an aggregation of one of my favorite bees…the agapostemon!
they’re back, and this time….i have a macro on hand!
last year we discovered them in august and they hung around till mid november, numbers dwindling near the end of that time. it was sad.
i didn’t want them to leave. i was sure the next generation wouldn’t approve of my trees. but they’ve returned.
two nights in a row they have been on the same branch, a bunch of males, just under 50 or so, bedding down for the night. (last year they were on a tree right next to them on a slightly lower branch.
around 10pm the bulk of the bees have landed. they spend much of the night walking over eachother, looking for the perfect spot. late into the night they settle down into a deep sleep, eyes still appearing to be open, but antennae dropped in slumber. they’re early risers, gone before i wake up around 6-6:30 ish.
i feel very lucky to have this interesting wildlife situation right outside my back door.
oh, and by the way…if you want to see other photos of small things from nature, you can visit my photoblog.
Filed under: animals, birds, life, nature, wildlife | Tags: birds, cactus, life, nature, pictures, wildlife
oh man.
every year i have a family of curved bill thrashers that live in a nest in a cholla bramble in my back yard. 6 feet in the air, surrounded by spiny branches, the thrashers have raised their babies, safe from the neighborhood cats, safe from my dogs.
yesterday i saw this at lunch:
either an owl in the night or a hawk in the morning had obliterated my resident thrashers. they were a fixture in our back yard and they are greatly missed! thrashers have my favorite bird call. it is terribly quiet today…
Filed under: bees, insects, nature, pets, photography, wildlife | Tags: bees, damselfies, insects, nature, photography, photos, wildlife
as some of you know, i have started a nature blog, but i wanted to fill you in here, as well: today buzzybeegirl and i had a field trip!
here’s what we saw:
damselflies
dragonflies
tarantula hawks
paper wasp
anthophorid(bee)
perdita(bee)
agapostemon(bee)
ducks
red wing blackbirds
grackles
sliders(turtle)
paper wasp
whiptails(lizards)
turkey vulture
milkweed bug
marine blue butterflies
Filed under: animals, dogs, nature, pets, wildlife | Tags: animals, dogs, life, nature, pets, wildlife
yesterday’s pre-work walk was at the park. most of it is paved, but some parts are through the field. many places have critter holes.
so we’re walking along and as cody bear is sniffing and walking along a gopher pops up right in front of his nose. if his mouth had been open he probably would have popped right into cody bear’s mouth.
i screamed. naturally. it was early. i was caught off guard.
we continue walking and about 10 minutes later we’re walking around the duck pond. i wasn’t paying attention. cody bear pulled and the leash went tight. turtle. i made him sit and look at the turtle, but…i think he wanted to eat that. pickles….could have cared less.
“why we stoppin’ cody bear? why we stoppin’?”
i ruin his good times.
Filed under: animals, bees, insects, life, nature | Tags: animals, bees, biology, ecology, insects, macro, nature, photography, wildlife
i have all these new bee pix…and i took them with buzzy’s macro.
so i’ll show you the pix, then i’ll show you them with…THE PEN. our signature move: the bee with the papermate ballpoint pen….so you can see how tiny these little guys are!
the bee is smaller than the head of my ball point pen!
all of these bees are sleeping. awake…they’re just to hard to capture in a photograph. so small and quick.
i will be posting bees regularly at my new blog: digitalmuzzle.wordpress.com and as always, you can learn heaps about bees at buzzybeegirl!
oh and hey!…these pix are copywritten!
