photobyjohnbo

Lens-Artists Challenge #252 – What’s Bugging You?

Dragonfly

This week Donna challenges us to bug everyone with insect photos. She writes, “I think the true challenge here, is that encounters are rarely purposeful, and bugs are never willing participants. We happen upon them and well, you know, twenty-five photos later that perfect bee finally plops itself down on a lavender-thistle, or we capture it peeking from behind a kangaroo-paw plant.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

I introduced my post with my favorite dragonfly image reworked to 2K HD (as are many of the images I’m sharing today). However, here’s one of the images specifically referenced in Donna’s quote, in this case, a butterfly instead of a bee on a lavender thistle.

The Monarch – Pretty as a butterfly on a thistle.

Of the few insects I’ve captured over the years, the butterfly is my favorite subject. I have many images, so in addition to the couple I share in this post, you can find several more in my Flickr gallery here for you, all freshly reworked in 2K HD and edited yesterday.

Probably my favorite butterfly is the Monarch. I was chagrined to read this in my research for this post: “Monarchs have declined 85% in two decades. The Western population — which overwinters in California as part of its international migration — has suffered a heartbreaking 99% decline. Overall the migrating populations are less than half the size they need to be to avoid extinction.”

The Zebra Longwing butterfly

The black butterfly with white stripes pictured above is the Florida state butterfly (thanks to the Internet). It’s not on any endangered list and is secure in Florida. I could relay lots more information about the species, but I’ll leave that to you, dear reader, to find out more if you are interested.

Fly on a flower.

In October 2018, I was wandering through the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill NC, and saw this giant fly covering most of the flower it was sitting upon. It stayed there long enough for me to capture it with my Nikon D500.

Bee on a flower.

In Saint Louis at the Missouri Botanical Garden, I found this bee hard at work harvesting. I don’t have a dedicated macro lens, but the Tamron 16-300mm lens at full zoom makes a decent substitute, especially since at 300 mm, I can be several feet away from the subject so as not to frighten it away.

Damselfly.

Though both species have been around for millions of years, I learned there are several obvious differences between damselflies and dragonflies. There are several “tells”, but the most obvious tell is the position of the wings at rest. Dragonflies at rest spread their four wings perpendicular to their bodies as you can see in my opening photo. Damselflies at rest tuck their wings parallel to their bodies. If this isn’t enough for you, here is a chart. >grin<

I made my usual Thursday publication deadline, but a few hours late. We just got back from a family trip, so I am a bit tardy. Thanks to Donna for allowing me to realize that I have more images of insects in my library than I thought I might. Thanks also to Excire for keywording and cataloging my images all easily located by the keyword set >Animal>Insect. It took but moments to find all 28 of my photos in this category.

On Saturday, guest host Brian of Bushboys World challenges us to think about “Fragments”. His post goes public on January 10 at noon Eastern time. If you are thinking about joining in but aren’t quite sure how to get started, check here.

John Steiner

32 comments

  1. You definitely had some GREAT images tucked away for us! And thank you for clarifying the differences in dragonflies/damselflies.

    I love the detail of the dragonfly in the feature, and the butterfly sure contrasts nicely with the thistle. The bee on the flower is clearly living his best life, and I am amazed how a pesky fly can be so stunning. I admit to having a rolled up newspaper ready yesterday. My little cherubs kept leaving that backdoor open going from the pool to the potty. The flies took it as an invite. lol.

    the damselfly…wow. Thanks John. I know you have had a busy week. Appreciate your diligence, wisdom, and stellar photos.

    Reply

    • I’d often wondered about the difference between the damsels and dragonflies and looked it up years ago. I had to look it up again to remind myself.
      Excire keywording app really helped me in finding the insect photos I had. I found more than I remembered that I had.

      Reply

    • That discovery for me happened when I first looked at the image on my computer and realized it didn’t look quite the same as my other dragonfly images.
      I don’t remember what clued me in to looking for the term “damselfly” to make the comparison.

      Reply

  8. Beautiful photos, John. I carefully avoided photos of damsel and dragonflies in my own contribution since I didn’t know the difference. Thanks for the clarification. That’s very handy. I particularly like your photo of the big fly. So colourful.

    Reply

  9. A great and varied selection of ‘bugs’ John! I love the Zebra Longwing butterfly in particular, but all the shots are excellent. Like you I find a good zoom invaluable in capturing insects as I can keep my distance and not frighten them (or get stung/bitten!)

    Reply

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