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Archive for the ‘Insects’ Category

Migrant Hawker dragonflies in Brussels

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Travel, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 4, 2018| 4 Comments »

Last year when visiting Brussels, Belgium in early September, I was excited to discover dragonflies at the botanical garden in the center of the city. I headed back to the same location on Sunday right after checking into my hotel to see if I could find some dragonflies there this year.

As soon as I arrived at the small pond at the botanical garden, I was thrilled to see a number of large, colorful dragonflies flying about. Although they spent most of their time flying patrols over the water, occasionally one of the dragonflies would perch on the vegetation at water’s edge, which allowed me to capture some images of them.

I absolutely love the beautiful colors and patterns of these dragonflies, which I believe are Migrant Hawker dragonflies (Aeshna mixta). I am definitely not an expert on European dragonflies, however, and there are a number of other hawker species that are somewhat similar in appearance. In North America, there are dragonflies of this same Aeshna genus, which are usually referred to as mosaic darners, but I don’t think that this particular species can be found on the other side of the Atlantic.

Migrant Hawker

Migrant Hawker

Migrant Hawker

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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Bright-eyed dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 3, 2018| 12 Comments »

It almost looks like this Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula vibrans) was wearing cool wraparound sunglasses this past weekend when I spotted him chilling out at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. From a distance, it looks like dragonflies have smooth bodies, but when you get a good look up close, you discover that they have tiny hairs covering various parts of their bodies.

Great Blue Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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Almost perfect

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 2, 2018| 13 Comments »

As a nature photographer, I am used to living with compromises. Unlike some other kinds of photographers, I don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect light or photographing only perfect subjects. I can make a few adjustments or move about a bit to improve my composition, but most of the time I deal with imperfections of one sort or another.

Every once and a while, though, I’ll take a photo that doesn’t require any substantial adjustments or even cropping–it looks just like I imagined it would. That was the case with a recent image I captured of a female Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera) at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.  I like the way that I captured the subject, I like the curved of the vegetation on which it is perched, and I like the background. It’s a bonus that I didn’t need to crop.

Perfection is elusive in any pursuit—this is about as close as I can come to it in my photography.

Eastern Amberwing

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Fine-lined Emerald dragonfly in August

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 1, 2018| 4 Comments »

I tend to be an opportunistic photographer, content to wander about and shoot whatever I happen to find. For the last couple of weeks, though, I have been searching diligently for a particular species of dragonfly, the Fine-lined Emerald (Somatochlora filosa), and yesterday, the final day of August, I finally found one at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

What makes this dragonfly so special? In his excellent website Dragonflies of Northern Virginia, Kevin Munroe described some of the allure of this particular species— “One of Northern Virginia’s most rare dragonflies, possibly our rarest, this species is seldom seen and little known throughout its range, from New Jersey to Florida, and west to Kentucky and Texas. Most field guides describe its breeding habitat as “unknown”.”

Last year I was lucky enough to see a Fine-lined Emerald several times, but I wanted more. As befits its name, my first glimpse yesterday of the dragonfly was of its brilliant green eyes as it flew by me. Unlike some species that fly high the air, Fine-lined Emeralds often patrol at waist to eye level. I was able to follow and track the dragonfly until it perched. This species hangs vertically from vegetation when perching, so it can be tough to spot one unless you have seen it land.

I was fortunate to be able to photograph this beautiful dragonfly on several different perches until it finally disappeared from sight. Here are a couple of my favorite shots from our altogether too brief encounter yesterday.

Fine-lined Emerald

Fine-lined Emerald

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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A literal hunger

Posted in damselfly, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2018| 10 Comments »

When recently at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge I spotted these two damselflies, which an expert identified as probable Big Bluets (Enallagma durum), I initially thought they were mating. Then I realized that the positions were all wrong and the nibbling on the neck was probably indicative of a literal hunger. Yikes.

As Tina Turner once sang, “What’s love got to do with it?”

damselflies

daamselflies

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Peaceful coexistence

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, Uncategorized, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2018| 9 Comments »

Two different colored dragonflies, a Needham’s Skimmer (Libellula needhami) and a Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans), were peacefully sharing a prime perch on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Why is it so hard for us to peacefully coexist with one another?

peaceful co-existence

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Staring contest

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Humor, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 29, 2018| 4 Comments »

Have you ever gotten into a staring contest with a dragonfly? Dragonfly eyes can have an almost hypnotic effect on you when you look directly into them..

I went eye-to-eye with this Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. She was the one to break eye contact first as she cocked her head, smiled at me, and decided the contest was over.

Eastern Pondhawk

Eastern Pondhawk

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Colorful Calico Pennant dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 27, 2018| 10 Comments »

It is great to see that at least a few colorful Calico Pennant dragonflies (Celithemis elisa) are still around. I photographed this handsome male last Friday as he perched at water’s edge at the small pond at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Summer is slowly slipping away. Some species of dragonflies are already gone for the year and others will soon follow suit. A few species have yet to appear, so all of the news is not bad. Still, as kids return to school and the daylight hours become noticeably shorter, it’s hard not to have the feeling that the lazy days of summer are coming to a close.

Autumn is my favorite season for a number of different reasons, but I am not quite ready to give up on summer. So I’ll keep sweating and searching, seeking to capture the summer beauty that still surrounds us. Like this dragonfly, I’m still holding on.

calico pennant

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Amazing dragonfly eyes

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2018| 14 Comments »

Dragonflies have amazing compound eyes that wrap around their heads. With up to 30,000 facets (ommatidia, to be technical), dragonflies have incredible vision and can even see colors beyond human visual capabilities, like UV light. For an easy to read discussion about dragonfly eyes, i.e. not overly scientific, check out this posting by “grrl Scientist” that was posted on scienceblogs.com.

I captured this close-up image of a Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula vibrans) yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. At least once a season, I manage to get a shot like this when a cooperative dragonfly lets me get close. I captured the image below with my trusty Tamron 180mm macro lens on my Canon 50D DSLR. This lens, which has a longer focal length than most macro lenses, gives me some stand-off distance so I can get a macro shot like this without actually being on top of the subject. The only downside to the lens is that it has no built-in image stabilization, so I have to pay extra attention to remaining steady when shooting with it—I generally use a monopod to help reduce camera shake and I think it helped for this image.

The image is framed just as I saw it in my viewfinder. Most of the time I end up cropping my images as part of my normal post-processing, but in this case it looked pretty good without any cropping whatsoever.

Great Blue Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Red Admiral butterfly in August

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2018| 3 Comments »

I just love the colors of this Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) that I photographed on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I mean, really, how can you not like an insect that sports the red, white, and blue?

You don’t have to be American to like those three colors—it seems like there are an awful lot of countries that use them in various shades and patterns in their national flags.

Red Admiral

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 23, 2018| 8 Comments »

I was thrilled to capture some shot of a Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio troilus) this past weekend at Green Spring Gardens as it fed on a lantana flower. I am so used to more muted colors when I am shooting in the “wild” that the brightness of these flowers seem almost unnatural.

If you look closely at the butterfly’s legs in the first image, you will see that one of them is blurred. Obviously the butterfly was moving about and my camera’s shutter speed was too slow to stop the motion. In many cases I would be disappointed with that lack of sharpness, but I find that it acceptable here, because it doesn’t really distract the viewer’s eyes.

There are a number of dark-colored swallowtails in our area, but the Spicebush Swallowtail is the only one with a blue swoosh on its wings in the middle of a row of orange spots.

Spicebush Swallowtail

Spicebush Swallowtail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Red-footed Cannibalflies

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 21, 2018| 7 Comments »

Imagine an insect so powerful that it is reportedly able to take down a hummingbird. Then give it the macabre monniker of Red-footed Cannibalfly (Promachus rufipes). If I were an insect, I would be really worried. Actually I don’t think that I would want to allow one to bite me, because a cannibalfly stabs its prey with its proboscis and injects saliva that help to liquify the prey’s insides. Then the cannibalfly sucks out the liquid through its proboscis.

I don’t know why exactly, but the last week or so I have seen a lot of Red-footed Cannibalflies during my trips to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Here are a few of my recent shots. The first one reminded one of my Facebook viewers of The Lorax, a Dr. Seuss character with a big mustache. Maybe this insect needs to overhaul its public image so that it is viewed as being less threatening. One possible first step might be to change its name to the Bee Panther, a nickname that is sometimes used for this species.

On a side note, each of the last four years, including this year, a 2013 posting entitled simply Red-footed Cannibalfly has been my most viewed posting. If I calculated correctly, the posting has been viewed almost 2400 times, including 293 times in 2018.

Why is that posting so popular? Apparently a lot of people do Google searches for “red-footed cannibalfly” and stumble onto my blog posting. I’m proud of a number of my postings and the images that I have captured, but I must confess that I don’t consider that 2013 posting as one of my best.

It’s a little scary to think that I may be inextricably linked in some people’s minds with Red-footed Cannibalflies. Yikes!

Red-footed Cannibalfly

Red-footed Cannibalfly

Red-footed Cannibalfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Dragonfly and water lilies

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2018| 10 Comments »

There were only a few water lilies in bloom at the small pond at a local garden that I visited this past weekend. Surprisingly, they were all pink in color and not the white ones that I am more used to seeing—perhaps it is late in the season for the white ones. Not surprisingly, there were quite a few dragonflies buzzing about and I decided that I wanted to get a shot of one of them perched on one of the water lilies.

So I waited and hoped and waited some more. My patience was eventually rewarded when a tiny male Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera) landed on a partially open water lily bud and perched momentarily.

I really like the image that I managed to capture because of the way it conveys a sense of the mood of the moment, a calm, almost zen-like feeling of tranquility. The colors are subdued and the composition is minimalist—there is a real beauty in simplicity.

Dragonfly and water lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Watercolor dragonfly and frog

Posted in Amphibians, Art, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, painting, watercolor, tagged , , , , , , , on August 19, 2018| 17 Comments »

Last night I was playing again with watercolors and found inspiration in some videos about Chinese sumi-e brush painting, particularly one by Daleflix on YouTube that showed him painting a dragonfly and a frog. I really like the way that sumi-e painting, which is often done in ink on rice paper, emphasizes the importance of each brush stroke.

My painting skills still need a lot of work, but I especially like how the dragonfly turned out. There is a kind of minimalism in the dragonfly that appeals to me. It was really all-or-nothing when I painted it. Each of the wings, for example, was a single brush stroke, with a little bit of outlining done later. Similarly, the segmented body was done in a single pass.

I kind of got a little lost after I had painted the frog and the dragonfly and tried to add some contextual elements. The water ended up way too dark and some of the branches got too thick. In case you are curious, the painting is 4 x 6 inches in size (10 x 15 cm), so the brush strokes were pretty small.

Still, I like the overall feel of this little painting, which represents a new step for me as I explore watercolors. I think that I may explore this style of painting some more.

dragonfly and frog

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Zowie Zinnia and Monarch

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 19, 2018| 9 Comments »

There were lots of flowers in bloom yesterday at Green Spring Gardens, a historic county-run garden not far from where I live. One of my favorites was the Zowie Zinnia and a Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) seemed to like it a lot too.

I was at the garden with my dear friend and photography mentor, Cindy Dyer, and her husband. We were all taking a break at one point and I told Cindy that I was going to return to a patch of Zowie Zinnias to see if I could get a shot of a butterfly landing on one. We both recalled a photo that she took in 2010 (check out her blog posting) when an Easter Tiger Swallowtail butterfly appeared out of nowhere and landed on one of the two Zowie Zinnias that she was focusing on with her camera on a tripod.

Imagine her surprise when a couple of minutes later I returned with this photo. She grabbed her camera and went to the patch of zinnia, but, alas, the butterflies were not as cooperative for her as they had been for me.

Monarch butterfly and Zowie Zinnia

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Viceroy and Queen Anne

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2018| 6 Comments »

I suppose that I should call this a royal posting for it features both a viceroy and a queen. Of course, here in the USA we don’t have a monarchy, but that doesn’t keep us from having Viceroy butterflies (Limenitis archippus) and Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota). I spotted this royal pair on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge where the Viceroy repeated probed the clusters of Queen Anne’s Lace.

You probably have noticed that the coloration of the Viceroy butterfly matches that of the Monarch butterfly. One of the easiest ways to tell them apart is the black line across the hind wings which is present with Viceroys but not with Monarchs.

Viceroy butterfly

Viceroy butterfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Fishing spider in August

Posted in Arachnids, Insects, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , on August 17, 2018| 16 Comments »

Unlike those that construct elaborate webs, some spiders instead perch at the shore with extended legs and sense prey through vibrations on the surface of the water. When the prey is detected, the spider runs across the top of the water, prompting some to call it the “Jesus spider.”

I spotted this cool-looking Six-spotted Fishing Spider (Dolomedes triton) in the shallow water of a pond this past Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Six-spotted Fishing Spider

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Skipper butterfly and flower

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2018| 7 Comments »

I can’t identify this flower and I am not certain what kind of skipper butterfly this is, but the two of them sure did combine well in this image that I captured this past weekend at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. (I’m leaning towards this being a Peck’s Skipper (Polites peckius), but there are so many different kinds of skippers that it’s hard to be sure.)

In many ways this is the kind of image that I aspire to capture. The subject is active, engaged in probing the flower with its extended proboscis, rather than in a static pose. Of equal importance, the image has an artistic feel, a kind of beauty in its composition and colors. There are so many uncontrollable elements in nature that there is no way to guarantee results like this, but it is sure is nice when it happens.

UPDATE: Helpful folks on Facebook and readers of this blog have helped to identify the butterfly as a Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon) and the flower as an Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana). Thanks, Drew and Molly.

skipper and flower

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Gold-tinged wings

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2018| 3 Comments »

I love the stunning red-orange coloration of a male Needham’s Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula needhami), especially when the sunlight dances across its gold-tinged wings, as it did on Monday morning at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Generally I prefer an uncluttered background for my subjects, but in this case I think the soft patterns of the grasses in the background enhance the image more than would have been the case with a uniform single color.

Needham's Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Monarch butterfly in August

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 12, 2018| 3 Comments »

I am always excited to see Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). Over the years there have been numerous reports of this species becoming endangered, primarily because of the loss of habitat. Some years, I have spotted only a few Monarch during an entire summer. This year I have been fortunate enough to see them at several of the locations that I frequent.

I spotted this spectacular Monarch butterfly yesterday while visiting Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in nearby Vienna, Virginia with some fellow photographers. Each of us has a different style of shooting and preferred subjects and we usually shoot separately. It is always a lot of fun when we reassemble after shooting and share our photos and experiences with each other over dinner at a restaurant.

Monarch butterfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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My favorite dragonfly?

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 11, 2018| 14 Comments »

What is your favorite dragonfly? Most people would have trouble answering a question like that. If they do happen to notice dragonflies, they generally have not looked closely enough at them to identify species—at best they might be able to say something like, “I like the big green ones that I see flying overhead” or “I like the little blue ones that perch on the reeds.”

Most of you know that I somewhat obsessed with dragonflies (and those who know me well might question my use of the qualifier “somewhat” in the first half of the sentence). I love the beauty and aerial agility of these flying insects and I spend endless hours searching for them for months on end.

How do I choose a favorite dragonfly? It’s kind of like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. There are different things that I like about different dragonfly species.

If I were asked the question directly, I would probably say that the Blue-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum ambiguum) is my favorite dragonfly. I absolutely love the striking combination of the turquoise blue eyes and the striking red body. Blue-faced Meadowhawks are also special to me for a personal reason—I was awarded second place in a local photo contest several years ago for a macro shot of a Blue-faced Meadowhawk. (Here is a link to the 2015 posting Second place in a local photo competition that shows that prize-winning entry and tells some of the back story of the image.)

Yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge I photographed my first Blue-faced Meadowhawk of the season, a handsome male with bright coloration. Even if you are not a big fan of dragonflies, I hope that you can agree this little dragonfly is strikingly beautiful—welcome to my world.

 

Blue-faced Meadowhawk

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Silvery Checkerspot butterfly

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 10, 2018| 4 Comments »

Recently I spotted this small orange and brown butterfly while I was roaming the trails at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I initially thought it was a Pearl Crescent butterfly, a familiar species, and posted a photo on Facebook. One of my friends there, however, pointed out that my little butterfly was actually a Silvery Checkerspot butterfly (Chlosyne nycteis), a new species for me.

The composition in my image is pretty simple, but I really like the way that it turned out, with the soft contours of the butterfly juxtaposed with the linear veins of the leaf and the sharp contrast between the dominant green and orange tones. The shadows are a real bonus, adding additional interest to the photo.

Silvery Checkerspot

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Dragonfly versus damselfly

Posted in damselfly, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 9, 2018| 6 Comments »

This image is a little gruesome, but here is a close-up look at an Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) as it consumed a damselfly that it had captured this past Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Northern Virginia. The second image shows a different Eastern Pondhawk with a different damselfly—the pondhawks seemed to have a particularly voracious appetite that day.

Eastern Pondhawk

Eastern Pondhawk

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Unquestionable beauty

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 8, 2018| 8 Comments »

I spotted this beautiful butterfly this past weekend at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. I am pretty sure that it is a Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), judging from the pattern of its wing spots.

While I may not be absolutely certain that it is a Question Mark butterfly, its beauty is unquestionable.

Question Mark butterfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Dragonfly versus dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2018| 7 Comments »

I was simultaneously fascinated and horrified yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge as I watched this Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) gnaw on the head of a colorful Calico Pennant dragonfly (Celithemis elisa) that it had captured. I know that dragonflies eat other insects, but in my mind I tend to think of them consuming mosquitoes and other such smaller insects. Some of them, however, apparently prefer larger prey, including other dragonflies.

Eastern Pondhawk versus Calico Pennant

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Colorful Green Darner

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2018| 6 Comments »

Normally when I see a Common Green Darner dragonfly (Anax junius) it is patrolling in the air and it is mostly a greenish blur. This past Friday, however, I was fortunate enough to spot one on the ground, nestled low in the vegetation at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. At this closer distance I was able to marvel at all of the wonderful colors of this beautiful dragonfly.

Be sure to click on the images to see the details of this dragonfly at higher resolution.  Did you notice the blue color near the tip of its “nose?”

Common Green Darner

Common Green Darner

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Cruising altitude

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 4, 2018| 6 Comments »

This Prince Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps) almost looks like it was flying at an airplane’s cruising altitude and was looking down at a landscape with rivers, mountains, and lakes. I spotted this dragonfly last weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and spent quite a while trying to get a shot of it in flight.

The dragonfly, however, never ventured close enough to shore for me to get a detailed shot of it. I was a little disappointed until I opened up the image on my computer and discovered that I had managed to capture a wonderful, fanciful background. Sometimes I try to document the reality that I see and other times it seems like it is just my imagination running away with me.

Prince Baskettail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Ailanthus Webworm Moth

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , on August 4, 2018| 7 Comments »

When you closely at flowers, you discover all kinds of cool insects, like this Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva aurea) that I spotted yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. My eyes were drawn to the colorful pattern on the body of this insect, which I initially assumed was some kind of beetle. Because of the distinctiveness of the pattern, it was not hard to identify it after a Google search, but I was a bit surprised to learn that it is a moth, not a beetle.

I thought that this was my first time spotting this moth, but a search of my blog shows that I saw one in 2016 and did a posting entitled Not a Beetle. Although my memory may not be perfect, apparently my reaction was almost identical both times.

Ailanthus Webworm moth

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Metallic green sweat bee

Posted in Bees, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 3, 2018| 13 Comments »

Most folks are familiar with the comic book hero the Green Hornet, but have you ever seen a green bee? I don’t see them very often, so I was pretty excited to spot this one in some flowers last weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I think this kind of bee is generally known as a metallic green sweat bee and is of the genus Agapostemon.

green bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Dragonfly becomes prey

Posted in Arachnids, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2018| 6 Comments »

Sometimes the dragonfly is the predator and sometimes it is the prey—it appears to be primarily a matter of circumstances and timing. This male Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) met his demise this past Friday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

I am not sure how exactly the spider managed to snag the dragonfly, but I assume the dragonfly flew into the spider’s web, which was high in the air, spanning a gap between some tall trees. Interesting enough, I was only able to see a few strands of the web, so I wonder if this action took place at the extreme edge of the web.

common whitetail dragonfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Eastern Ringtail

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 1, 2018| 3 Comments »

I spotted this beautiful female Eastern Ringtail dragonfly (Erpetogomphus designatus) last week along the Potomac River while exploring Great Falls Park. Unlike some of the dragonflies that I have photographed recently that perched at the very tips of tall stems, this species likes to perch in vegetation relatively low to the ground. As a result, the background in this image is a little more cluttered than I prefer.

If you double click on the image, you will see the image in greater detail, including its marvelous multi-colored eyes and the wonderful colors and patterns on its body.

Eastern Ringtail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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