View allAll Photos Tagged FlyingInsect
During the afternoon thunderstorm this dragonfly held it's ground. Reminded me of a windsock being blown back and forth.
This was shot at Meijer Gardens.
Shoot52 - 2020
Week10
Helios 44-2 58mm lens
Thanks for comments and favs :)
Slowly but steady, habitat enhancements are moving in the right direction. I am taking a break from it for a little while because I have company.
I have found that this is a good time to go through some of the photos I have been taking over the last few weeks. These are some of the most recent so I guess I will be uploading backwards.
It's been rather chilly for the past few days but the monarchs don't seem to mind as long as the sun is shinning. The temperatures are going to warm up again for the remainder of the week so we should be in the mid 70's instead of mid 60's.
This is the first spicebush swallowtail butterfly I spotted in my yard for 2017. At first I thought it was an eastern black swallowtail because it was rather small for a spicebush. When the red pentas are full, butterflies can always dive in and enjoy the purple pentas. The red ones are pretty full, monarchs are everywhere!
I raised a few of these last year and it was so simple. They don't eat nearly as much as monarchs and their host plant in my yard is the red bay tree, I have three of those. All you have to do is find the eggs, snip a piece of the branch where you find the egg(s) and place that piece of branch in a floral tube filled with water. It is important to check the water in the tube each day you don't want that to dry up. And check on the caterpillar once it hatches to make sure it has plenty of food, snipping a little more of a branch when needed. I hope to raise a lot of these in protective custody this year.
Have a beautiful day and happy snapping. I'm off to get more nectar and butterfly host plants at my favorite Florida native plant nursery.
dragonfly mid air mating. bit gutted it was backlit. I caught it better from the front but hard to tell that there are two.
The bush daisy is one of the newer plants in my garden, the monarchs really love it and I am glad to have it. I purchased 6 of these for habitat enhancement. They are still sitting in pots so I can move them around and decide where to place them. That does not stop the monarchs from enjoying them though.
The sunlight catches the wings of a Long Hoverfly as it takes nectar from a Thistle flower.
No1 in Smoke Ring series.
After reading my own description about the differences between male and female tiger swallowtails, I decided that my less than scientific definition might leave people a bit confused. I was saying silly things like the females look as if someone took beautiful blue spray paint and lightly misted her lower wings.
Anyway, I decided a translator might be in order so people can see the differences. Today, that translator is Wikipedia.
Note: On the image of the black morph, you can see her tiger stripes if you look closely. I was unable to get a snap of her open wings, she stayed in the deep shadows with her back turned away from me most of the time she was here.. Also those pesky goldrims were hassling her for a date as she was trying to sip nectar, so she decided to leave this nectar club and find another.
From Wikipedia:
The male is yellow with four black "tiger stripes" on each forewing. Females may be either yellow or black, making them dimorphic. The yellow morph is similar to the male, but with a conspicuous band of blue spots along the hindwing, while the dark morph is almost completely black.
I disagree slightly with Wikipedia's description of the black morph, they have brilliant blue spray paint like the yellow morph does :)
Have a wonderful day and happy snapping.