View allAll Photos Tagged Aggregation
Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii) - Eastern North Carolina, USA
A few weeks ago we had heavy rains which brought with them spadefoot activity. These toads spend most of their time underground becoming active only after heavy rains when they form large breeding aggregations in flooded areas. This was one such night with many spadefoots calling, in amplexus, and depositing their eggs. This frenzy has evolved as their breeding time is uncertain and if they miss an opportunity to pass down their genes there may not be another for a long time as its reliant on specific weather conditions. Populations may go over a year without breeding opportunities so when they do present themselves the toads take advantage. Not this one however, he was content to sit far from all the action. Just him and his reflection in this corner of the flood zone.
North Antrim, October 2024. The most plentiful moth in the woods recently. Though it is an aggregation of three species, which cannot be reliably identified just by their markings. I've checked and all three, November Moth, Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth are present up here.
2012. Fir Island - Snow Geese by the thousands start arriving from the Arctic in early October. Typically 70,000 to 90,000 winter in North Puget Sound until late March or April.
Fraser-Skagit Population Dynamic: "Snow geese that over-winter in northwest Washington comprise a unique population of intercontinental travelers shared by three countries: the United States, Canada and Russia. These snow geese make an arduous, annual flight to Russia’s Chuckchi Sea, to breed on Wrangel Island off the north coast of Siberia. They are called the Fraser-Skagit population, because the same identification collaring/banding studies that disclosed details of their migration timing and itinerary, found that snow geese of this group had a high fidelity to one nesting site on Wrangel Island and to one wintering area, here. They stay apart from the other snow geese aggregations that nest separately on Wrangel and winter in California." wdfw.wa.gov
A male Ashy Mining Bee (Andrena cineraria). I've spotted these locally, but haven't seen one in the garden yet. This male was at a large nesting aggregation in South Staffordshire.
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
I took my son out to look for a couple of species of harmless Garter Snakes last week. Garter snakes are one of our earliest snakes to emerge from hibernation and I have recorded the Valley Garter snake taking meals in November and March when overnight temperatures are freezing and daytime highs are in the mid 50's F. Now that temps are warming these snakes are starting to migrate away from their dens. They may travel several miles away from a den to spend the spring and summer. Garter snakes can often be found in very large denning aggregations with hundreds and even thousands of snakes retreating to the same safe spot to escape freezing and dehydration in winter.
My son already loves to catch snakes and he insisted on being my snake wrangler when I was photgraphing this Valley Garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi).
I don't usually post photos of my family but in this one my son is mostly out of focus so I will make an exception.
Early Saturday morning at Tucson Botanical Gardens on August 27 2016 with Dylan and Tania for a stroll and then breakfast (including salad for salad dog) at Café Botanica.
RAW file processed with RAW Therapee.
_8270061
Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve, Middle Point, Northern Territory, Australia.
Also a pair of green pygmy geese on the left, mid distance.
Created from 3 bracketed images (hand-held), ISO100, +2EV, 0, -2EV, f/2.8, aperture priority, merged into a HDR image using Photomatix Essentials, "Natural" option, then a final edit in Photoshop Elements 13.
Sun was at my 16:00 position, almost perfect position for the desired outcome.
Cropped to about 60% of original.
This burst of colour shows a fascinating discovery: a galaxy cluster acting as a cosmic furnace. The cluster is heating the material within to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius – well over 25 times hotter than the core of the Sun.
The cluster, named HSC J023336-053022 (XLSSC 105), lies four billion light-years from Earth and was independently discovered by both ESA’s space-based XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory and NAOJ’s Subaru optical-infrared telescope in Hawaii, USA. XMM-Newton detected the cluster via the international XXL survey, which is exploring two large areas of space outside our galaxy.
Galaxies are not distributed randomly throughout the Universe, and instead exist within groups and larger clusters. These aggregations can be mammoth and sometimes contain many thousands of individual galaxies in a single structure, all embedded in clumps of invisible dark matter. Different sub-groups of galaxies can also form within a single cluster, as shown here by the two blue-purple circles on either side of centre. These circles mark the locations of two sub-clusters within HSC J023336-053022 which are slowly moving towards and colliding with one another, ‘shock heating’ gas to intense temperatures in the process.
To create this image, three different international teams of astronomers explored observations of the cluster across the electromagnetic spectrum, in order to isolate and pinpoint different aspects of this region of space. These aspects are shown here in different colours. Individual galaxies within the cluster show up in orange, and dark matter – which maps the location of the two sub-clusters – in blue (via optical observations from Subaru). Hot, dense gas shows up in green (X-ray from XMM-Newton), while hot, thin, high-pressure gas shows up in red (radio from the Green Bank Telescope in Virginia, USA). This gas is something known as the ‘intracluster medium’, which permeates galaxy clusters and fills the space between galaxies.
The addition of radio observations makes this image special, as many studies of collisions within or between galaxy clusters have not captured this shock-heating process – which is represented visually in the region where green changes to red – in radio. This process releases immense amounts of energy and heats already scorching gas to temperatures tens of times hotter. Before shock heating, the gas sits at around 40 million degrees Celsius – already some 2.7 times hotter than the core of the Sun.
Credits: Radio: GBT Green Bank Observatory/National Science Foundation (NSF); Optical: Subaru Tele-scope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/HSC-SSP collaboration; X-ray: European Space Agency (ESA)/XMM-Newton/XXL survey consortium.
Man, these dusky birch sawflies (Nematus latitarsus) were going to town on the birch in the field we were in. Larval aggregations are impressive defoliators :-)
2013. Fir Island.
Snow Geese by the thousands start arriving from the Arctic in early October. Typically between 60 to 120 thousand Snow Geese migrate from Wrangel Island Russia to winter and feed in Washington's Skagit / Fraser Delta, 70,000 to 90,000 of those winter in North Puget Sound and stay until late March or early April.
The Fraser-Skagit Population Dynamic: "Snow geese that over-winter in northwest Washington comprise a unique population of intercontinental travelers shared by three countries: the United States, Canada and Russia. These snow geese make an arduous, annual flight to Russia's Chuckchi Sea, to breed on Wrangel Island off the north coast of Siberia. They are called the Fraser-Skagit population, because the same identification collaring/banding studies that disclosed details of their migration timing and itinerary, found that snow geese of this group had a high fidelity to one nesting site on Wrangel Island and to one wintering area, here. They stay apart from the other snow geese aggregations that nest separately on Wrangel and winter in California." wdfw.wa.gov
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
Explored #210 on 2019/04/13
The topi (Damaliscus lunatus jimela) is a highly social and fast antelope subspecies of the common tsessebe, a species which belongs to the genus Damaliscus. They are found in the savannas, semi-deserts, and floodplains of sub-Saharan Africa.
Social systems range from resident small herds to huge migratory aggregations and from large individual territories to breeding arenas, or leks, where males crowd together and compete to inseminate females. However, all the variations are on a territorial theme: males must own property in order to reproduce. In wooded savanna where the preferred open grassland is patchy, males may hold on to territories of 50-400 hectares year after year, leaving only to drink or commute to areas where the first vegetation has grown after fires in the dry season. Herds of 2-10 females and their offspring of the year live in traditional home ranges that may include only a few territories. On wide plains, topi often aggregate in hundreds and are mobile, becoming migratory where the distance between wet-season and dry-season feeding grounds is long. There males can only afford to hold temporary territories or risk being left behind; therefore, they join the migration but re-establish a territorial network as soon as the aggregation resettles.
This very handsome Topi was photographed on a late evening game drive in the Maasai Mara. Game Reserve, Kenya.
North Antrim, October 2025. The most plentiful moth in the woods recently. Though it is an aggregation of three species, which cannot be reliably identified just by their markings. I've checked and all three, November Moth, Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth are present up here.
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
North Antrim, October 2025. The most plentiful moth in the woods recently. Though it is an aggregation of three species, which cannot be reliably identified just by their markings. I've checked and all three, November Moth, Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth are present up here.
Petit article sur moi dans le web journal local
www.enbeauce.com/actualites/culturel/103655/le-monde-a-tr...
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
All Friends’ Photos from Top Social Networks In One App by Dctology - itunes.apple.com/us/app/carde/id906405446 . The simplest & quickest image aggregation tool you can find. Check it out yourself and Enjoy!
..."puddling".
"Puddling" is behavior most conspicuous in butterflies, but occurs in other animals as well, mainly insects; they seek out certain moist substances such as rotting plant matter, mud and carrion and they suck up the fluid. Where the conditions are suitable conspicuous insects such as butterflies commonly form aggregations on wet soil, dung or carrion. From the fluids they obtain nutrients such as salts and amino acids that play various roles in their physiology, ethology and ecology.
Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are diverse in their strategies to gather liquid nutrients. Typically, puddling behavior takes place on wet soil. But even sweat on human skin may be attractive to butterflies such as the Hackberry Emperor. More unusual sources include blood and tears. Again, similar behavior is not limited to the Lepidoptera, and for example, the various species of bees commonly called sweat bees are attracted to various kinds of sweat and tears, including that of humans.
In many species puddling behavior is restricted to males, and the presence of an assembly of butterflies on the ground acts on the Pipevine Swallowtail for example, as a stimulus to join the presumptive puddling flock. Males seem to benefit from the sodium uptake through puddling behavior with an increase in reproductive success. The collected sodium and amino acids are often transferred to the female with the spermatophore during mating as a nuptial gift. This nutrition also enhances the survival rate of the eggs.
ISO400, aperture f/11, exposure .006 seconds (1/200) focal length 300mm
The Reddish Egret is one of the most active foragers among the herons. It feeds by Walking Slowly, Walking Quickly, Running, Hopping, Open Wing Feeding, Foot Raking, Underwing Feeding, Double Wing Feeding, and Hovering Stirring. It often uses Peering Over, probably in response to its highly reflective feeding habitat.
How it puts these behaviors together is characteristic. It runs across shallowly flooded flats, chasing schools of very small fish. It frequently changes directions, intermittently Hopping ahead, flapping wings as a disturbance, and finally stopping to stab when it catches up to prey. It feeds in very shallow water in open situations taking long strides, usually in a semi-crouch posture with head and neck extended forward. Reddish Egrets often run into the wind and sun. Open Wing Feeding is used most frequently during cloudy weather, in open water, and when the water surface was calm.
They feed primarily alone, as would be required for such a wide-ranging foraging technique. Even in loose assemblages they tend to feed individually. When food becomes highly available, they do occur in large aggregations and multispecies flocks including other herons, pelicans, terns, and stilts, spoonbills, and flamingos. In this situation they restrict their feeding behavior accordingly. It has been observed that the egrets sometimes gather into large highly compressed flocks, and it is possible that young of the year tend to assemble in flocks as an aid to foraging, a hypothesis deserving testing.
The juvenile can be quite variable. Typically, the dark form is light grey brown above and paler on the belly. Feathers, such as wing coverts, are tipped cinnamon. Short head and breast plumes, first acquired at 4-6 months, are dull cinnamon. The bill is black to dark horn, usually lighter toward the base. The lores are black. Dark individuals range in base color from medium grey to grey brown often with a rufous tinge, some being quite rufous. Young white morph birds are all white. By 18 months juveniles resemble adults with worn plumage, and they attain full adult plumage in their third year.
I found this one at Sebasain Inlet State Park in Brevard and Indian River Counties.
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
All Friends’ Photos from Top Social Networks In One App by Dctology - itunes.apple.com/us/app/carde/id906405446 . The simplest & quickest image aggregation tool you can find. Check it out yourself and Enjoy!
2013. Fir Island. Dry Slough Road. Snow Geese by the thousands start arriving from the Arctic in early October. Typically 70,000 to 90,000 winter in North Puget Sound until late March or April.
Fraser-Skagit Population Dynamic. "Snow geese that over-winter in northwest Washington comprise a unique population of intercontinental travelers shared by three countries: the United States, Canada and Russia. These snow geese make an arduous, annual flight to Russia’s Chuckchi Sea, to breed on Wrangel Island off the north coast of Siberia. They are called the Fraser-Skagit population, because the same identification collaring/banding studies that disclosed details of their migration timing and itinerary, found that snow geese of this group had a high fidelity to one nesting site on Wrangel Island and to one wintering area, here. They stay apart from the other snow geese aggregations that nest separately on Wrangel and winter in California." wdfw.wa.gov
Scinax ruber - Buenaventura Reserve, Ecuador
There were consistently large aggregations of these just a few 100 meters away from where I lived but it took me a few months to find them because all my forays into the night tended to be farther off and I would bypass the area they were in almost right away. In addition they were only really vocal during rain and I would often choose not to venture out if it was actively raining. I'm lucky I found them before I left, I rather enjoyed photographing these little frogs as they called from amid the tall grass. It was a challenge to move through the grass and photograph them calling without spooking them as all the grass was interlocked and disturbing even a far away piece would cause a reverberation across the whole area. I met with mixed success when trying to photograph these and more often than not they would hop away or stop calling but the odds were in my favor and I eventually got some shots I was content with.
Website: www.benporterwildlife.co.uk
Blog: www.benporterphotography.blogspot.co.uk
Two days ago I was lucky enough to be crewing a trip out with AK Wildlife Cruises around Falmouth's superb coastline. We came across an amazing aggregation of Dolphins towards the end of the trip, amounting to over 180 animals! It was very cool to see them actively feeding and tightly pursuing fish into an ever-dwindling bait ball. A brilliant experience!
Female White-zoned Furrow Bee (Lasioglossum leucozonium) A solitary mining bee, sometimes nesting in aggregations. There are instances of two females digging in the same burrow but this may be communal rather than social activity. The nest is dug in flat to slightly inclined, light soil, in sparsely vegetated conditions or where there is a short sward. The burrow descends vertically with cells at the end of short side tunnels. Each female constructs from six to fifteen cells, which produce a sexual brood the same year. These mate and the females hibernate, probably not in the maternal nests as nesting aggregations do not always seem to be located in the same places in consecutive years.
Photo by Nick Dobbs 29-06-2023
Just a small proportion of what was an immense nesting aggregation in the chalk grassland. Ivy bees everywhere! And to think they were first recorded in Britain less than 20 years ago.
Cherhill Down / Calstone Down, Wilts
For whatever reason we haven't taken any very good pictures of this here bee, Colletes thoracicus. This species is one of two that form huge aggregations in loose or sandy soils in the Eastern U.S. Very cool and for some reason lacking any Bee Nest Parasites (Epeolus) that haunt other Colletes. The males swarm over the aggregations creating fear in the American populace of and imminent sting attach of their little darlings (they, of course, are unafraid). No need for fear as simply lying down in the middle of colony will prove. ... it is even more impressive if you take your clothes off. This male is from Shenandoah National Park, collected by Jessica Rykken and photoed by Greta Forbes.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information:
Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:
bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
All Friends’ Photos from Top Social Networks In One App by Dctology - itunes.apple.com/us/app/carde/id906405446 . The simplest & quickest image aggregation tool you can find. Check it out yourself and Enjoy!
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
Cicadas are insects belonging to the family Cicadidae in the order Hemiptera. Cicadas are recognizable by their large size (body length of usually about 1 inch in length or longer) and clear wings held rooflike over the abdomen. Most cicadas are strong fliers that spend their time high in the trees, so they are rarely seen or captured. Their life cycles are long, usually involving multiple years spent underground as juveniles, followed by a brief (roughly 2 - 6 weeks) adult life above ground.
Common habitats for Tibicen canicularis are mixed and deciduous woods in Canada and the eastern United States. Geographic range includes the northern United States and southern Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains.
When mature Tibicen canicularis is recognizable by being mostly black with brown or green markings on its body. The body size is typically 1 - 1.3 inches (27-33 mm) long and the wingspan can reach 3.22 inches (82 mm). The wings are interlaced with green veins which are especially noticeable near the base. While nymphs of the species commonly feed on pine juice and the roots of pine and oak, the adults are not known to eat at all.
As adults, males produce a loud species-specific mate-attracting song using specialized sound-producing organs called tymbals. These sounds are among the loudest produced by any insects. In some species, the male calling song attracts both males and females to mating aggregations, while in other species males remain dispersed. Female cicadas do not have tymbals, but in some species the females produce clicking or snapping sounds with their wings.
Their song is often described as being a loud, high-pitched whine much like a power saw. It fades within 10 - 20 seconds, and starts again after a few seconds of silence. From my observation Tibicen canicularis tends to be the most vocal mid to late morning and then again late afternoon. It's common not to hear them during mid-day. At the peak of the season in late summer they can almost be deafening. To hear the sound of these cicadas, which was taped here in Indiana, please click on the below link...
www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/bio/zoo/dogday.htm
After mating, females lay eggs in bark or twigs; the eggs hatch later in the season and the new nymphs burrow underground and begin feeding on roots. Tibicen canicularis spends most of it's life cycle underground as nymphs feeding on root juice. Typically 2 - 3 years. When it comes time to emerge and molt into an adult it uses its strong front legs for digging to the surface. Unlike periodical cicadas, whose swarms occur at 13 or 17 year intervals, Tibicen species can be seen every year, hence their other nickname "Annual Cicadas".
ISO800, aperture f/10, exposure .008 seconds (1/100) focal length 300mm
This was a rare, rare treat on the Silver River. First time seeing any manatee on this river and there were SEVEN, including a calf.
Finally found some Ivy Bees (Colletes hederae) today. They weren't in Staffordshire (where I've been searching recently), but over the border in Shropshire.
A friend of mine at the Camera Club told me that he'd seen some near Venus Pool, so we set of this afternoon to see what we could find. There were reasonable numbers foraging on Ivy flowers. We also found an aggregation of nests nearby. There were several dozen females digging nest burrows and flying-in with full pollen loads. The one pictured here is a male. So pleased to have finally found some this year!