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Archive for the ‘Flowers’ Category

Milkweed bug nymphs

Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2013| 3 Comments »

I continue to be fascinated by the metamorphosis of bugs and was happy to spot these familiar bright red milkweed bug nymphs recently at my local marshland.

Last year, I closely followed the development of Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) and documented my observations in a posting called Life Phases of the Large Milkweed Bug. I was a bit surprised when that posting turned out to be my fourth most visited posting of the year (it was since slipped to number six on the charts), because it was as much an educational posting as one to highlight my photos.

When I spotted these bugs, there were several clusters of them and the individuals seemed to be gradually separating as they sought out food. The bugs go through five phases (instars) as nymphs before they become adults and these look to be in one of the middle phases of development, judging from the size of the “wings.”

In case someone is not familiar with these bugs, I am attaching a photo from last year of adult milkweed bugs to give an idea of what these nymphs will eventually become.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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September bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , on September 11, 2013| 11 Comments »

One of the advantages to living in a relatively southern state is that summer lingers on for a bit longer and flowers continue to bloom. As long as there are flowers blooming, bees continue in their efforts to gather pollen,

I am not sure what flower this is, but it was blooming in the garden of one of my neighbors, Cindy Dyer, a fellow photographer and blogger. She plants her garden with an eye toward plants that will photograph well and when I have a few minutes to spare, I enjoy making a quick trip to her garden to see what is blooming.

When I first spotted it, I had this mental picture of the bee working in the center of the flower, surrounded by a protective little fence.  I tried to frame the shot with that picture in mind and chose an angle that emphasized the “fence.”

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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I only have eyes for you

Posted in Arachnids, Art, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , on September 6, 2013| 11 Comments »

Earlier this week I came across this little Jumping spider, patiently waiting for a prey to come by.  I never fail to be amazed by those eyes that seemed to be staring right at me.

Transfixed, I can’t take my eyes off of you, tiny spider, and your eyes seem to follow me. I don’t want to seem paranoid, but when I am with you, I always feel like somebody is watching me.

Somehow I thought I heard the spider humming, “I only have eyes for you,” but it was just my imagination, running away with me.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Not hovering

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , on September 6, 2013| 4 Comments »

Hoverflies normally are as busy as bees, in constant motion as they move from flower to flower. From time to time, though, I guess that they need to rest. Earlier this week, I captured this image of  a hoverfly relaxing on the dried out leaf of a cattail at my local marshland park.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Glory bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on September 3, 2013| 10 Comments »

Although it is already September and signs of autumn are starting to appear, bees continue to be as busy as ever. The blooming morning glory flowers in my neighbors’ garden attracted a bee’s attention early yesterday morning and I got these shots as it tried to figure out the optimal strategy for gathering pollen.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Gray Hairstreak buterfly

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , on September 2, 2013| 15 Comments »

Small butterflies have a special, delicate beauty all their own, like this Gray Hairstreak butterfly (Strymon melinus) that I photographed in mid-August at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia.

BugGuide states that this is the most common hairstreak in North American, but this is only the second time that I have seen one. Based on my limited observation of American women, I would assert that the blond hairstreak is the most common one, though, as a bald guy, I realize that hair is not my area of expertise.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Butterfly and crabapples

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Urban, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2013| 10 Comments »

In the townhouse community in which I live in Northern Virginia, many of us have crabapple trees in our front yards, and the fallen crabapples are a nuisance at this time of the year. However, they do provide food for certain butterflies that prefer rotten fruit to flower nectar, like this Red-spotted Purple butterfly (Limenitis arthemis astyanax) that I photographed this morning.

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Swallowtail and cardinal flower

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on August 29, 2013| 7 Comments »

I love the look of this black-colored swallowtail butterfly feeding on a cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) in the marsh—I just wish that I could identify the butterfly with greater certainty.

I used to think that there were only a few varieties of black-colored swallowtails, but as I learn about more species, I get more confused when trying to identify them. Most of the time I think that this is a Pipevine Swallowtail, but at other moments I convince myself that this is a Spicebush Swallowtail or even a Black Swallowtail. Whatever species it is, this butterfly kept its wings flapping pretty quickly as it was feeding, which accounts for the motion blur in the wings.

I really like the color and shape of the cardinal flower and wanted to show some of the buds and petals, so I decided not to crop the shot any tighter. I was a little surprised to find this butterfly on the cardinal flower, because I read in one document on the internet that these flowers are pollinated almost exclusively by hummingbirds.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Munching on mallow

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2013| 7 Comments »

Looking into a Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), I immediately noticed the distinctive colors of a Handsome Meadow Katydid (Orchelimum pulchellum), feeding on the center stalk of the flower.

The katydid did not move from its position and merely cocked its head a little to the side and glanced up at me with its striking blue eyes. It seemed to be a little irritated to be disturbed, though I must confess that it’s really hard to gauge the emotions of an insect from its expressions.

The Handsome Meadow Katydid is one of my favorite insects and, in my humble opinion, truly deserves its name. In addition to its rainbow coloration and distinctive eyes, it has the cutest little feet and toes.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Backlit Viceroy

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on August 28, 2013| 6 Comments »

I love backlit subjects, especially when the light shines through from behind and provides a stained glass effect, as was the case with this Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus).

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Dusky Stink Bug

Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 24, 2013| 9 Comments »

I probably should have come up with a more creative title for this posting than the name of the featured insect. I mean, really, how many readers will be enticed to read a posting about a Dusky Stink Bug (Euschistus tristigmus)?  I word “stink” is enough to turn off some people.

Stink bugs are pretty much all shaped the same, but they come in different colors and patterns, many of which are similar, so identification is not always easy. In this case, for example, I had to determine if the shoulders were rounded or pointed to distinguish between two brown stink bugs—they look pointed to me.

The stink bug was hanging upside down, feeding on a plant that I can’t identify, when I encountered him. He seemed to be feeding, although I never did get a look at his face in order to verify my assumption. The upside down perspective is a little odd and I thought about rotating the image, but ultimately decided to leave it with its original orientation.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Landing pad

Posted in Dragonflies, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 20, 2013| 4 Comments »

In most of my dragonfly shots the dragonfly is perched on an upright object, so, for variety, I decided to post this shot of a male Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) in a different position—posing on a lily pad.

The dragonfly made multiple touch-and-go landings on this lily pad, sometimes landing near the edge, as in the first image, and sometimes in the middle, as in the second image. I couldn’t tell if he was using the lily pad as a platform for hunting insects or was merely resting. (It seems to me that it would be more advantageous for hunting to be higher up, unless you are hunting aquatic insects, which didn’t seem to be the case here.)

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Green Bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2013| 15 Comments »

I usually think of bees as being yellow and black, but I encountered this cool-looking metallic green bee (of the Agapostemon family) yesterday at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia.

I remember The Green Hornet on television when I was a child, but I had never seen a green bee before. At first I was not even sure that it was a bee, but as I watched it gather pollen, I concluded that it had to be a bee.

It seems appropriate that I would be suffering from color confusion at that moment, because the bee was perched on a Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea purpurea), a flower that in my experience is rarely purple—they normally appear to be more pink than purple.

Now that I have freed my mind and broken the bonds of my conventional thinking about the color of bees, perhaps I will be able to bee all that I can bee.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Sumo bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 14, 2013| 9 Comments »

This bee might argue that it’s just the camera angle, but my initial impression of this bee was that he looked chubby—I don’t think that I have ever encountered a bee with such a round face. He reminds me of a sumo wrestler at the start of a match.

The bee pretty much ignored me, though, and seemed to really get into his work, literally, gathering pollen from some kind of milkweed plant, perhaps swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata).

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Tiny bee on cardinal flower

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on August 12, 2013| 6 Comments »

I was attracted initially by the bright red color of a cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), but then I noticed a small amount of movement. When I looked more closely, I realized there was a tiny bee—the smallest that I have ever seen—busily gathering pollen. Rather than gathering pollen in little sacs, as I had seen other bees do, this bee seemed to be collecting it on his abdomen.

I don’t know much about plant anatomy, but as I searched on the internet, I learned some fascinating things about the cardinal flower, especially from a blog posting by Eye on Nature dealing with the way in which hummingbirds pollinate cardinal flowers. That posting contains some detailed images of the cardinal flower as well as some fantastic shots of a hummingbird.

I shot these images handheld with my 180mm macro lens. Ideally I should have used my tripod to get clearer shots, but the bee was so active that I feared that it would be gone if I had taken the time to set up the tripod.

It’s hard to appreciate the small size of the “bearded” section of the cardinal flower, so I enclosed an overall look at the flower as a final photo.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Skipper on a jagged leaf

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , , on August 11, 2013| 7 Comments »

Every now and then I take a photograph and I am not really sure how I achieved the effect in the shot, like this one of a Fiery Skipper butterfly (Hylephila phyleus) on a jagged leaf.

With the exception of a few minor adjustments of the RAW image and a tiny bit of cropping, this looks just like the image I started with. When I first examined the image, I was pretty sure that I had used flash, but the EXIF data indicate that flash was not used. I took the shot handheld at ISO 400, f/6.3, and 1/500 sec. The depth of field was pretty shallow, but I did get the eye pretty much in focus, and I like the way the sharpness falls off so quickly.

I especially like the blurry jagged back edge of the leaf and the sharper near edge. The triangular shape of the wings seems to mirror those jags. Even the butterfly’s pose seems to work well, with the one leg dangling over the edge. If you click on the image, you get a higher resolution view of the photo.

I think that this is a Fiery Skipper, though I confess that I am not very good at identifying these little butterflies. Let me know if you can help in further identifying the butterfly.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Orange and pink

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on August 11, 2013| 7 Comments »

Normally I don’t think of orange and pink as colors that work well together, but I really like the result when I captured a shot of a Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly (Speyeria cybele) feeding on an unidentified pink flower.

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Tiger Swallowtail on tiger lily

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2013| 2 Comments »

I don’t know my flowers very well, but I think that this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) is feeding on some kind of tiger lily (Lilium columbianum). Tiger on tiger—I like the way that sounds. Whatever the case, I love the gorgeous colors of the flowers, providing a gorgeous contrast to those of the butterfly.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Swallowtails and blue sky

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 8, 2013| 3 Comments »

The weather this week has been mostly gray and dreary and I felt the need for a burst of bright colors, so I am posting this image from last week of a two Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (Papilio glaucus) feeding on an unidentified flower against the backdrop of a brilliant blue sky. The butterflies were even cooperative enough to place themselves at different angles to add  visual interest to the shot.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Wasp and sky

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , on August 8, 2013| 9 Comments »

The wasp looked huge, even from a distance, but I could get a clear shot of it against a beautiful blue sky, so I stepped out of my comfort zone and got close enough to it to get these images.

Fortunately I was shooting with a 180mm macro lens, so I was not exactly on top of the wasp, but even so, it was a little disconcerting to try to get a shot of a moving insect that looked so enormous and a bit threatening in the viewfinder.

After I took these shots, the wasp flew away and I breathed a sigh of relief—another sting avoided.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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My favorite dragonfly

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 5, 2013| 5 Comments »

Yesterday I was happy to get some shots of my favorite dragonfly, the Halloween Pennant dragonfly (Celithemis eponina), at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia.

I don’t see this dragonfly at all at most of the usual places where I take photographs, so I was really excited when I caught sight of a couple of them yesterday. I chased them around for well over an hour and attempted to take a couple of hundred shots using a wide range of camera settings.

Why did I take so many photos? The dragonfly gets the “pennant”  part of its name because it likes to perch on the very tip of a weed stalk and waves in the breeze like a pennant. Yesterday, in fact, was breezy and it was quite an adventure trying to keep the dragonfly in focus, particularly because I was trying to fill the frame with the dragonfly.

The dragonflies that I photographed were reasonably cooperative and I was able to attempt shots from the side, from above, and even from below (fortunately the insects in the grass did not bite very often).

I have not been able to go through the shot to pick the best ones, but thought it would be nice to post one now, especially for those readers who may not be familiar with this beautiful dragonfly. I suspect that I will eventually post at least a couple more images in future postings.

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Sunflowers make me happy

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2013| 9 Comments »

Different flowers affect me differently—some attract me with their beauty or their fragrance or their colors. Others produce an emotional response, like sunflowers, which invariably make me feel happy.

The sunflower’s large size, bright colors, and bold graphic design appeal to me. The sunflower virtually shouts its presence to the world—there is nothing soft and delicate and hidden about a sunflower.

Like this Easter Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus), I sometimes enjoy the flowers one at a time. It was really fun, though, to visit a large field of sunflowers last month with some friends and to see row after row of these cheery flowers. I wanted to capture a group shot of the sunflowers, but I struggled to find a way to do so effectively (even though we had even brought along a little stepladder to give us a perspective from above the flowers).

In the end, my favorite shot (the second one below) focuses on a single sunflower, with other flowers a blur in the background. I used a simple 50mm lens (often called the “nifty fifty”) on my camera to make sure that I could control the aperture and throw the background out of focus.

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Destructive beetle

Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on August 2, 2013| 8 Comments »

Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica) are very destructive, but also very beautiful and I sought to highlight both of these aspects in this image.

There were quite a few plant with holes chewed in them in one area of the marsh and I suspect that Japanese beetles were the culprits (this one sure looks guilty). I like the coloration and the reflectiveness of the insect’s body.  I’m not completely sure, but  I think that I see my own reflection as well as the sky in the part of the shell near the beetle’s head.

This was a situation in which I really enjoyed having my new 180mm macro lens. It allowed me to frame it the way in which I wanted without scaring away the beetle (and I did not have to do much cropping at all).

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Face in the flowers

Posted in Dragonflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 2, 2013| 8 Comments »

I don’t often see dragonflies perched on flowers, so I was really happy when this male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) decided to take a break on something more attractive than the usual broken swamp reed.

If you look closely at the dragonfly’s face (or click on the photo for higher resolution), you can see some interesting details, like his cute little bucktooth and some sparse sprouting hairs on his chin, like those of a human teenager. I also like the contrast in color between the blues and greens of his body and the pink of the flowers.

Why did the dragonfly choose to land on the flower? It almost looks like he is helping with pollination, but I suspect that is not the case. The answer to the question is probably much more simple—he landed on it, because it was there.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Please take me home

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2013| 5 Comments »

As I was ending a photo shoot of sunflowers last month with some fellow photographers, one of them noticed a pretty butterfly perched on a leg of one of our tripods.

The butterfly remained on the tripod leg for a long time and appeared to be licking the leg, prompting us to speculate that there might be residual salt from sweaty hands on the leg. Of course, we all gathered around the tripod and tried to snap photos of the butterfly. Eventually the butterfly flew off to some nearby vegetation, where I got this shot of a butterfly that I have not been able to identify.

As we go ready to walk back to our vehicle, the butterfly perched on the pant leg of one of the other photographers and then on my shirt before flying away again. After stowing our gear in the trunk, we figured that we had seen the last of the butterfly.

However, as we were slowly driving away, we noticed that the butterfly was inside the car, eventually moving to the windshield, right in front of the driver. We helped the butterfly out of the car with the aid of a CD cover, but had to admire its persistence—the butterfly really seemed to want to go home with us.

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Summer Azure butterfly

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2013| 12 Comments »

Tiny butterflies seem to be constantly in motion and their size and speed normally make them difficult to photograph.

However, this butterfly, which I think may be a Summer Azure butterfly (Celastrina neglecta), stayed perched on a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) long enough to allow me and my fellow photographer, Cindy Dyer, to take multiple shots, including some with flash. There is a whole family of small Azure butterflies, which have a wingspan of about one inch (25mm) and look pretty similar, so please correct me if I have misidentified this insect.

We encountered this little butterfly on a recent trip to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. (You can check out Cindy’s image of this butterfly, along with her amazing photographs of other flowers and insects on her blog.)

I love large, colorful butterflies, like the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails that were virtually omnipresent in the garden that day, but there is something really special too about the delicate beauty and simple colors of this tiny butterfly. In this image, I like the way in which the muted tones of the butterfly provide a nice visual counterbalance to the bold colors of the flower.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Heron over the marsh

Posted in Birds, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on July 31, 2013| 4 Comments »

I have always thought that Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) look a bit awkward on the ground, tall and gangly, but they are exceptionally beautiful in the air.

As I approached this blue heron yesterday at my local marshland park, it decided to take off. I often try to capture photos of birds in flight, though generally I’ve had only limited success.

I was pretty happy with this shot, taken shortly after the heron had taken to the air. The shaded woods make a decent backdrop and I like the blooming mallow flowers in the foreground. The focusing is a little soft, but I was able to capture some of the magnificent details of the visible wing.

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Stained glass butterfly

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on July 30, 2013| 3 Comments »

As the beautiful afternoon light illuminated the wings of this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) from behind, I couldn’t help but think of a stained glass window. I love backlighting and these subjects seemed perfect to showcase the effect—I didn’t even have to worry about using fill flash to avoid shadows, because of the translucency of the wings.

I took this image yesterday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia, yet another wonderful local spot for photographing flowers and insects.

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Crawling out

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2013| 4 Comments »

A bee landed on a petal of this purple water lily and, rather than heading for the center of the flower, the obvious source for pollen, decided to crawl down in between the petals.

I followed his movements and, after a short time, those movements ceased—I think he was stuck. Eventually the plant began to move again, this time more violently. Slowly the bee reemerged, crawling slowly up the petal, and I took this shot.

I find the tones of this image to be very soothing and purple is one of my favorite colors. If you too like purple, check out today’s postings called Violetta at Calee Photography, one of my favorite blogs.

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Peaceful coexistence

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2013| 9 Comments »

The sunflower was big enough that an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) and a bumblebee could peacefully coexist, though it looks like they had each carved out their individual spheres of influence and kept a respectful distance from each other.

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Hummingbird Clearwing (part 2)

Posted in Art, commentary, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2013| 14 Comments »

Is photography an art or a science? One of the reasons why I enjoy photography so much is that it engages me on both levels—it speaks to my inner artist and to my inner geek.

Growing up, I remember watching Olympic figure skating and I was struck by the fact that the skaters received two sets of scores, one for “artistic impression” and one for “technical merit.” In many ways, I use a similar internal scoring system for my photographs.

Some of my photographs rate high on one scale, but fall short on the other. Every now and then, though, one of my images stands out, with high marks all around, like this shot of a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe).

I posted an earlier photo of this remarkable insect and I thought it was really cool that I was able to get a close-up with the wings open and frozen in action, a somewhat impressive technical feat. This image, shot from a bit farther away, gives a better view of the moth in action and is a more interesting pose. The background, which I recall was evergreen bushes, is uncluttered. Even the flower cooperated by following the “odd rule” of composition, with three clusters of tiny flowers.

It’s hard to be objective when analyzing my own work, but I know that I like this image a lot.

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