View allAll Photos Tagged Pollinators
This pair of black-chinned hummingbirds didn't care for the honey bees but they really liked the red yucca blossoms. (Black headed hummer is the male)
This is a composite of two photos, but realistically depicts the scene. Depth of field is about 1.5 inches so it would be impossible to have both birds in perfect focus simultaneously.
Hello There!
I can't say that I've seen such an orange undercarriage before which makes me wonder if it is a different type of bee, or if it is simply covered with a thick layer of pollen. One thing, it sure was a speedy flier and tough to get an image of. This bee is gathering nectar from a wildflower called "Prairie Clover." In a ditch? Yes!
An ID has come my way, hip hooray and a big thank you to Jerome and Lou!!! It is a Leafcutter Bee, genus Megachile.
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A female Monarch butterfly on its way to the wintering grounds in Mexico and a honeybee having lunch on a Frostweed inflorescence.
TWU Butterfly Garden, Denton, Texas
Floral pigments have a large role to play in pollination of flowers by animals. This flower's radiating lines led directly to the pollen filled center of the blossom.
Named for its rigorous patrol of hedges and woodland rides, the gatekeeper butterfly is a prime pollinator. Look for them sipping nectar on sunny days in the summer.
This butterfly rests with its wings open, so the underside is less frequently visible. The male, shown here, has broad sex brands, comprising scent-producing scales known as androconia, on its forewings; the female has no such strips and is evidently much more of an orange butterfly. Unlike many 'browns', the Gatekeeper often rests with its wings open, which is very helpful when you are trying to determine the gender of a Gatekeeper. There is a wingspan difference between the sexes - but who can estimate size with any degree of accuracy when a butterfly is in flight? Males, with their wingspan typically 4cm, are slightly smaller than females, which usually have a wingspan of about 4.5cm
.Also known as the Hedge Brown butterfly, the Gatekeeper is fond of brambly hedgerows and ragwort-infested scrubland where nectar-bearing flowers are plentiful.
This short-lived butterfly of high summer emerges from the beginning of July onwards but by the end of August there are very few if any left to see.
Gatekeepers are seen throughout England, but they are more abundant in southern counties. In Wales the Gatekeeper is fairly common in the south and west but is less frequently seen the further north you go. In Scotland the Gatekeeper is seen very rarely, and the same is true of most of Ireland, although along the coastal strip of southern Ireland there are reasonable numbers of this lovely golden butterfly.
Lifecycle
The larval foodplants of the Gatekeeper are various grasses, in particular the various bents (Agrostis spp), meadow-grasses (Poa spp) and fescues (Festuca spp). The egg-laying habitat is rough grassland at hedged field margins, in woodland rides, fire breaks and larger clearings, and in scrubby grassland and wasteland where bushes have sprung up among grasses.
Female Gatekeepers drop their straw-yellow eggs from the air onto or near to suitable grass tussocks, generally in the shade of a small bush or a hedge. The eggs darken and become mottled brown-grey as, over a period of two to three weeks, the larvae develop inside the egg case. Once they have eaten their way out of the egg case, the tiny caterpillars consume their foodplant during daylight. After the first moult, the caterpillars crawl deep down into the base of their grass tussock and there they hibernate until the following spring. On waking, the green (sometimes brown) caterpillars become nocturnal feeders. They pupate in June or early July after their fourth moult, and the adult butterflies emerge from their chrysalises about three weeks later.
There are small white spots in the grey-brown mottling on the hindwing of the Gatekeeper. The Southern Gatekeeper, Pyronia cecila, is similar, but it has a more silvery mottled underside to its rear hindwings without the white spots.
I have no clue what kind of bee, wasp or whatever this is. I do know it is on some Aster flowers! :D Thanks to Leigh Ayres for the identification of this bee!! (Leafcutter bee)
TWU Denton campus
Tievine (Tie Vine), Sharp-pod Morning Glory, Purple Bindweed, Ipomoea cordatotriloba var. cordatotriloba (Convolvulaceae) with a bee pollinator. This species of morning glory is native to the southeastern United States, Mexico, and South America.
Happy Beautiful Bee Butt Thursday Have a great day folks, sadly another from the archives! But hopefully they will return. ;0) HBBBT
Imagine a world without these beautiful pollinators. Not only would it be sad...it would be extremely disastrous to our own survival.
It's a Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) in flight. It's puzzling to me why the lower part of this bee's hind leg is so long and looks the way that it does, as I can't find any photos elsewhere that look like this. Anyway, Happy Wing Wednesday, folks!
A bottle fly visiting a flower in my garden. A lot of people don't realize that flies are critical pollinators in both natural and agricultural systems. A recent analysis of crop species found that flies visited 72% of the 105 crops studied (bees visited 93%). This is just one of the ways that flies contribute to the ecosystem. I can understand peoples initial distaste for flies, due in large part to their portrayal in popular media. I used to feel the same way about them but as I've learned more through my macro photography I've grown to appreciate a lot of the insects that most people don't.
A worker bee, wearing a dusting of pollen and filling her pollen sacs as she visits cherry blossoms. Backyard photography.
A Fiery Skipper Butterfly on a Zinnia flower
Photographed on Hilton Head Island, SC, USA
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It's a Western Honey Bee, I believe. And this little creature was definitely doing its job; it was one of many bees that were moving rapidly from blossom to blossom in a patch of wild asters.
Happy Wing Wednesday