Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, damselflies, mating damselflies, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Vienna VA on August 5, 2014| 10 Comments »
Watching insects is sometimes like watching a Cirque du Soleil production, very colorful and incredibly acrobatic, like these mating damselflies that I photographed recently at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, blue heron, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, heron catches fish, Huntley Meadows Park on August 4, 2014| 13 Comments »
I watched and waited as the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) watched and waited. When the crucial moment came, we both reacted and were rewarded—the heron got a fish and I got a photo. For a brief moment, each of us was satisfied.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Landscape, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, blue heron, blue sky, blue water, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, Huntley Meadows Park on August 3, 2014| 6 Comments »
The lighting was breathtakingly beautiful and the reflections were amazing when I caught sight of this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) late last month at my local marsh. The heron was close enough that the 100mm macro lens that i had on my camera was the perfect lens for a portrait of this beautiful bird.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged brookside gardens, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, family Syrphidae, flower fly, hover fly, hoverfly, Wheaton MD on August 2, 2014| 12 Comments »
I used to think that all black-and-yellow insects circling around flowers were bees, but quickly learned that many of them are flower flies (also known as hoverflies). There are a lot of different varieties of flower flies, but I think that they all belong to the Syrphidae family.
Yesterday when I was visiting Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland, I managed to capture this image of a flower fly just as it had inserted its head into a small purple flower. It’s a pretty simple composition, but I really like the way that it turned out, with a good amount of detail on the fly’s body.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged brookside gardens, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Danaus plexippus, fly, hairy fly, juriniopsis, Monarch, monarch butterfly, Wheaton MD on August 2, 2014| 6 Comments »
Within minutes of my arrival at a garden in Maryland, I was able to photograph my first Monarch butterfly of the summer, but was also “treated” to the sight of the fattest, hairiest fly that I have ever seen, a true case of a beauty and a beast.
Brookside Gardens is a beautiful spot for photographing flowers and insects in Wheaton, Maryland in the suburban Washington, D.C. area. In one section of the garden, there is a section specifically planted to attract butterflies and it was in that area that I saw the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) along with more numerous Eastern Swallowtail butterflies.
I didn’t see a single Monarch butterfly last summer and feared that I might not see one this summer either, because of habitat issues in Mexico and the severe winter we experienced. I was therefore thrilled when I first caught sight of a Monarch and chased after them throughout the day at the garden.
My moment of joy was interrupted when I was buzzed by a very large fly. When it landed, I was startled to see that it was really plump and really hairy. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it would be tough to consider this beast to a a beauty. I poked around the internet in an attempt to identify this fly and it appears to belong to the genus Juriniopsis, though I can’t identify a specific species.
I continue to be fascinated by insects and at this time of the year you can usually find me chasing after them with my trusty macro lens, giving equal time to the beauties and to the beasts.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Huntley Meadows Park, nymph, Shakespeare on August 1, 2014| 15 Comments »
Chasing a nymph through the woods–it may sound like I was living out some fantasy as a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I was only running after a butterfly, a Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala).
As is usually the case, I had never seen this “Common” butterfly before, but the large, yellow-ringed eyespots on the forewings make it pretty distinctive and I had no trouble finding it in an on-line identification guide.
I chased after the butterfly for quite some time before it finally came to a stop and perched on a tree. I am not sure why, but the butterfly chose to perch upside down. When I processed my images, I couldn’t decided if I should flip the image 180 degrees or not. Ultimately I decided that the flipped image, which is the first one, looked more “normal.”
Which one do you think works better, the flipped image, i.e. the first one, or the one with the original perspective, i.e. the second one?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 