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Blue-faced Meadowhawk

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Blue-faced Meadowhawk, Blue-faced Meadowhawk dragonfly, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, Sympetrum ambiguum on October 8, 2013| 9 Comments »

I don’t expect to see new species of dragonflies at this time of the year, but one of my fellow photographers, Walter Sanford, has been stalking the Blue-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum ambiguum) almost daily and I joined him for a few hours one late September day and got this shot.

I learned quickly that these dragonflies are hard to spot, despite their conspicuous coloration. They seem to like to remain perched down low in the vegetation and wait for their prey, rather than fly around when they are hunting.

I love the combination of colors on the Blue-faced Meadowhawk and I was happy to get a decent shot that shows its blue face. If you want to see more shots of this beautiful dragonfly, check out Walter’s blog posting from yesterday.

I am now in search of the Autumn Meadowhawk, the last dragonfly that I observed last fall. Normally they should be here already, but none of my fellow dragonfly followers has observed any of them yeat.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Wasp nest

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography on October 7, 2013| 3 Comments »

” Do you want to get some shots of a wasp nest?” I was at a loss for words when a fellow photographer excitedly posed that question to me this past weekend. I had visions of an enormous cluster of very large and angry insects and I hesitated for a long moment before finally agreeing.

What had I gotten myself into? It turns out that my fears were greatly exaggerated and the nest was a very modest one, not much bigger than the wasps themselves. My fellow photographer had been told that they are paper wasps and it looks to me like they may be brown paper wasps, judging from some of the photos that I have seen on-line.

I am hoping that the nest doesn’t get too big, because it is near a path that I regularly use. There were not a lot of wasps present yet, but they looked pretty fierce and I kept my distance and used my telephoto zoom at the far end of its range.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Slender Spreadwing Damselfly

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, damselfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Lestes rectangularis, Slender Spreadwing damselfly, spreadwing damselfly on October 5, 2013| 7 Comments »

I featured this Slender Spreadwing damselfly (Lestes rectangularis) in an earlier posting in a series of action shots, but thought this more formal portrait deserved a posting of its own.

As I stalked this beautiful little dragonfly, it moved to a number of different perches and it is interesting to see how the background shifted in terms of color palette and clutteredness (I think I may have just created a new word). In the gymnastics shots of this damselfly, the background was bright and colorful and a little busy, whereas the background here is darker and a bit more moody, with just a hint of colors. Be sure to click on the image to see a higher resolution view of this little damselfly that was probably less than 2 inches ( 50 mm) long.

Those of you who like to observe damselflies know that this species is an exception to the general rule that damselflies, unlike dragonflies, hold their wing close into and parallel to their bodies when at rest. My fellow photographer and blogger, Walter Sanford, an expert on dragonflies, was the one who first spotted this damselfly and you should check out his blog for lots of wonderful wildlife photos, including a recent image of a perched Wandering Glider dragonfly, a species that never seems to land.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Damselfly gymnastics

Posted in Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Sports, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom, damselfly, gymnastics, Huntley Meadows Park, Lestes rectangularis, Slender Spreadwing damselfly, spreadwing damselfly on October 4, 2013| 9 Comments »

As I was observing this Slender Spreadwing damselfly (Lestes rectangularis) earlier this week, it suddenly launched into a series of acrobatic maneuvers worthy of an Olympic gymnast on the high bar. I captured several action shots of the routine, possibly related to laying eggs, although I managed my clearest shot when the damselfly returned to its starting position and waited for the scores from the judges.

Pointing the toes for maximum extension

Pointing the toes for maximum extension

damsel_spread2_blog

Swinging back to generate greater velocity for the next trick

Finishing up the routine

Finishing up the routine

Waiting for the scores from the judges

Waiting for the scores from the judges

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Change of perspective

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, butterfly, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, Limenitis archippus, perspective, Viceroy butterfly on September 29, 2013| 6 Comments »

A familiar subject can look quite different when viewed from an unusual angle. It’s a lesson that every photographer is taught early on, but I need constant reminders to vary my approach.

I took this shot of a Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) yesterday while lying on the ground and pointing my telephoto lens up toward the sky. The perspective caused the shape of the wings to be different and permitted me to see the butterfly’s legs in a way that was completely new.

Not all such experiments are successful, of course, but I think that this one worked out pretty well.

looking_up_blog

Click on the photo to see a higher resolution view.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Late September Viceroy

Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Limenitis archippus, Tamron 180mm macro lens, Viceroy butterfly on September 25, 2013| 9 Comments »

The days are getting cooler and leaves are starting to wither and fall, but there are still signs of the lingering summer, like this beautiful Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) that I photographed this past weekend.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Psychedelic beetle

Posted in Art, Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, autumn, beetle, Canon 50D, fall, Huntley Meadows Park, psychedelic beetle, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 24, 2013| 7 Comments »

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray as fall arrives in my local marsh, but there are still occasional spots of bright color, like this beetle that I encountered yesterday, crawling down a withered leaf. I have not been able to identify it, but its bold pattern and colors remind me of the art and fashions of the late 1960’s, when no combination was too wild. I graduated from high school in 1972 and still recall wearing some pretty wild-looking clothes.

Somehow I think the pattern on the beetle’s back would work well on a necktie. I guess it’s a commentary on how my life has progressed that I now think more in terms of neckties than tie-dyed t-shirts.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Really fuzzy white caterpillar

Posted in Art, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, caterpillar, fuzzy white caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 23, 2013| 6 Comments »

Imagine how skinny this fuzzy white caterpillar would appear if its fur were “groomed,” like some of the dogs in my neighborhood. There is one fuzzy white dog, in particular, that looks huge, which I think is a Great Pyrenees. I was shocked one day when I saw that dog with closely cropped fur—it looked to be only half of its normal size.

For some reason, this caterpillar’s hair seems to be more tufted than usual, compared to similar caterpillars that I have seen. Maybe the hair is bunched because of the heavy dew or the way that the caterpillar slept. Clearly the caterpillar is having a bad hair day.

Do you think it could get away with wearing a hat to cover the bad hair?

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Rainbow katydid depositing eggs?

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Handsome Meadow Katydid, Huntley Meadows Park, katydid, Orchelimum pulchellum, ovipositing, rainbow katydid, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 22, 2013| 15 Comments »

As was watching this Handsome Meadow Katydid (Orchelimum pulchellum) through my viewfinder, it suddenly arched its body and assumed a position worthy of an world-class gymnast or yoga master. What was it doing?

My first thought was that the katydid was merely stretching, getting ready for the day’s activities. When you jump around as much as these insects do, you can’t risk a pulled muscle or other injury by not warming up properly.

Over the past year, this rainbow-colored katydid has become my favorite insect, but I confess that I don’t much about their anatomy. Looking over my photos, I realized that I needed to identify the orange-colored body part, a part that I don’t recall observing before, in order to figure out what was going on. What could it possibly be?

Well, it looks like this katydid probably is a female and the orange-colored thing is her ovipositor, the organ used for depositing eggs. So, is she depositing eggs in the photos? I am not sure.

A University of Arkansas website describes the ovipositing for a similar katydid with these words, “An ovipositing female embraces a plant stem with her prothoracic and mesothoracic legs and brings the curved and sword-like ovipositor far forward so its tip can scrape the substrate.” It’s not really helpful when the explanation contains so many words with which I am unfamiliar. I think that I will leave this kind of science to the scientists.

As a photographer, I continue to be amazed by the multi-colored beauty of this fascinating insect and especially by its alluring blue eyes. I know that it’s an illusion, but those eyes often seem to be looking right at me. I’m not sure if this Handsome Meadow Katydid is depositing eggs in these photos, but I am sure that I like the images a lot, including the final image, which shows the katydid in a more “normal” position following her brief series of gymnastics.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Migrating Green Darner dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Anax junius, Canon 50D, Common Green Darner dragonfly, dragonfly in flight, Green Darner dragonfly, Huntley Meadows Park on September 21, 2013| 6 Comments »

Yesterday at my local marsh, I noticed some large dragonflies flying over the cattails and realized that it was migrating season for Green Darner dragonflies (Anax junius). I don’t usually think of dragonflies as migratory creatures, but I recall from early spring that Green Darner dragonflies spend their winters in the south and migrate north in the spring (or at least their offspring fly north).

Green Darners are pretty big dragonflies, with bodies up to 3 inches (75mm), so I decided to try to photograph one in mid-flight. Another photographer and I spent almost an hour trying to track and photograph the dragonflies. Unlike other times, when I photographed dragonflies when they were hovering, I was attempting to capture these dragonflies as they were flying at a normal speed, which greatly complicated the task.

I knew that there was no way that I could isolate a flying dragonfly against the green plants of the marsh, so I concentrated on the dragonflies in areas in which I would have the sky as a backdrop. I used my 180mm macro lens and would try to follow a dragonfly in the viewfinder and track it, hoping it would fly close enough for me to attempt a shot. As I was tracking the dragonfly, I would focus manually. Needless to say, my success rate was really low, but I am happy that I managed to get the shot below of what I believe to be a female Green Darner. My fellow photographer, who was using a 70-200 telephoto zoom lens used a different approach and pre-focused on an area and took a shot when a dragonfly entered that capture zone.

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day and I enjoyed this challenge, which gave me a greater appreciation for the aerial skills of dragonflies—they are really tough to track. This practice, though, should help me later in the fall when I start to take more photographs of birds.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Mating cannibalflies

Posted in Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, mating insects, Promachus rufipes, Red-footed Cannibalfly, robber fly, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 19, 2013| 11 Comments »

Most of us have heard that female praying mantises eat their mates after mating, so what happens when a pair of cannibal flies mate?

I was quite a distance away when I spotted this pair of insects, but I immediately recognized them as Red-footed Cannibalflies (Promachus rufipes), a species of giant robber flies. These flies are really big and have a very distinctively shaped body (and I had done some research on them for a previous posting). Cannibalflies are fierce predators and are reportedly very aggressive. Would the male survive the mating process?

I observed the pair for quite a while and concluded that the “cannibal” in this insect’s name refers to its behavior toward other insects. The male cannibal fly flew away unscathed.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Not a fuzzy caterpillar

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, fuzzy caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens, Y on September 18, 2013| 5 Comments »

When almost everything that you see looks like a bug, you know it may be time to take a break from photographing insects.

Recently I have been getting shots of different kinds of very fuzzy caterpillars and a posting on a fuzzy, white caterpillar has become my most viewed posting by a significant margin. This has whet my appetite to look even more intently for caterpillars and Monday I was pretty sure that I had spotted one with spiky tufts of hair on the thin branch of a plant. It was only when I got really close that I realized that my eyes had deceived me—it was not another fuzzy caterpillar.

Don’t get me wrong, it ‘s a pretty cool collection of seed pods and tendril-like branches, but it’s definitely not the caterpillar that I had in my mind.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Frog and fly

Posted in Amphibians, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, American Green Treefrog, Canon 50D, fly, Green Treefrog, Huntley Meadows Park, Hyla cinerea, Tamron 180mm macro lens, tree frog on September 18, 2013| 4 Comments »

As I was observing a tiny green tree frog in the cattails, a large fly suddenly buzzed into the frame and landed right next to the frog. Did the fly initially consider the frog to be a potential prey? Was the fly a daredevil who liked to flirt with danger? Was this an initiation test into a fly fraternity or perhaps the result of a bet between drunk buddies?

The unlikely juxtaposition of these two creatures makes me smile every time I look at it. As a child, I watched lots of cartoons in which frogs would flick out their very long tongues and snag unsuspecting flies from a great distance. I waited and watched, anticipating the moment when the frog would turn and strike. That moment never came—the fly eventually flew off to safety.

Real life doesn’t always live up to life in the cartoons.

frog_fly_blog

(Click on the photo to see a higher resolution view.)

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Tiny orange butterfly

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged Alexandria VA, Anatrytone logan, Canon 50D, Delaware Skipper, Huntley Meadows Park, orange butterfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens, tiny butterfly on September 17, 2013| 3 Comments »

I always seem to have real problems making positive identification of the smaller, nondescript butterflies, like this little orange skipper butterfly that I photographed recently at my local marshland park.

If I had to go out on a limb, I’d hazard a guess that this is a Delaware Skipper (Anatrytone logan), although with more than 3500 recognized species of skippers, the odds are not in my favor.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Blue Skimmer in flight

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 50D, dragonfly, dragonfly in flight, Great Blue Skimmer, Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly, Libellula vibrans, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 17, 2013| 16 Comments »

As summer fades, I have been seeing fewer and fewer dragonflies, so I decided to attempt some in-flight shots and managed to capture these images of a female Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula vibrans).

Photographing dragonflies in flight is one of my toughest photographic challenges, but I have learned a few tricks about capturing these kinds of shots. One way is to find a favorite perch of a dragonfly and try to photograph the dragonfly arriving and departing from that perch, given that dragonflies often return to the same perches. That was not the approach that I used this time.

The approach I used is to capture the dragonfly while it is hovering and is therefore in the same spot for a few seconds. I watched as two blue skimmers mated quickly and I knew that I had a target of opportunity, because the female would soon deposit the eggs in the water. She hovered in the air and then dipped her tail end down to the water to deposit some eggs and returned to the hover position and repeated the process. It was during this process that I got these shots.

I am always struck by the beautiful blue eyes of the Great Blue Skimmer, particularly in the female. The male is all blue, so his eyes don’t provide the same visual contrast as the drabber colored body of the female.

The dwindling dragonfly population is yet another sign of the changing of the seasons—it won’t be long before I begin to focus my camera lens more frequently on birds than on insects, but I am not giving up on my insects quite yet.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Macro with point-and-shoot in Brussels

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Travel, tagged bee, belgium, brussels, Canon A620, flowers, fly, leaf, macro photography, raindrops on September 14, 2013| 8 Comments »

It’s been gray and rainy almost all this week in Brussels, so many of these shots feature raindrops. When I am away on a trip for business, I generally carry only my point-and-shoot camera, an old Canon A620.

This trip I decided to experiment with the macro mode and see what kind of shots I could get. I was pleasantly surprised with the results and even managed to get some insect shots, despite the fact that I had to get really close to them, compared with the macro lens that I normally use. I never had to worry about harsh sunlight—I never saw any the entire trip—and mostly had to shoot a a high ISO and an almost wide-open aperture.

I did get some shots of the buildings in Brussels, which looked almost monochromatic in the gray light, but will post some of those images when I return home from the trip.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Blue Dasher on red leaf

Posted in Dragonflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Blue Dasher, Blue Dasher dragonfly, Canon 50D, dragonfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Pachydiplax longipennis, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 14, 2013| 3 Comments »

I love the mix of colors that resulted when a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) that I was observing chose to perch on a plant with red leaves.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Milkweed bug nymphs

Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, large milkweed bugs, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Another fuzzy white caterpillar

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, fuzzy white caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park, Spilosoma virginica, Tamron 180mm macro lens, Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar, Yellow Wooly Bear caterpillar on September 12, 2013| 6 Comments »

I continue to see these white fuzzy caterpillars and have concluded that they may be Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillars (Spilosoma virginica), also known as Yellow Wooly Bear caterpillars.

I have seen some mating white moths in the same area that look like Virginia Tiger Moths and my photos of these caterpillars resemble some of the ones I find on-line for the Yellow Wooly Bear caterpillars.

In any case, I really like the way that the light fell on this caterpillar and illuminated the long white hairs of its body, giving it a halo-like effect.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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September bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, bee, bumblebee, Canon 50D, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Bronze grasshopper

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Winter, tagged Alexandria VA, bronze grasshopper, Canon 50D, grasshopper, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 10, 2013| 7 Comments »

Who knew that grasshoppers come in so many different sizes and colors?

I used to think that all grasshoppers were the same, but this year I have started to look at them more closely and have already seen their amazing diversity. I definitely do not know enough yet, though, to distinguish among the different species.

Two things really stood out for me in this image of a grasshopper—its coloration and its feet. The metallic sheen of its body makes it almost look like it is wearing a suit of bronze armor. I’ve never before noticed the cool little hooks at the end of the grasshopper’s feet, but you can see them easily in this shot.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Brown praying mantis

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, praying mantis, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 10, 2013| 10 Comments »

I feel lucky whenever I spot a praying mantis, because they are usually so well camouflaged that they are virtually invisible when motionless.

I was a little surprised to see a brown one recently (all the other ones that I have seen have been green), but I can’t help but note that the brown head makes those green compound eye really stand out. I really felt like the praying mantis was looking right at me as I tried to photograph it.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Great Blue Skimmer

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, dragonfly, Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Libellula vibrans, Sigma 135-400mm telephoto zoom lens on September 8, 2013| 7 Comments »

Do you ever take shots and find that you like the way that the background turned out even more than the way the subject looked? That was the case with this image of a male Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula vibrans) that I photographed this past weekend.

The lighting was a bit harsh and the pose is pretty ordinary, but I love the two-tone background, caused in part by the use of my 135-400mm telephoto zoom at its full extension.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Not hovering

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, family Syrphidae, hover fly, hoverfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Pittsburgh Steelers caterpillar—a second year

Posted in Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Sports, tagged Acronicta oblinita, Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Smartweed caterpillar, Tamron 180mm macro lens on September 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

This past weekend I came across a type of caterpillar that I first encountered last fall. Its black, yellow, and white markings once again made me think of the Pittsburgh Steelers National Footbal League team that wears those same colors.

The sports pages of the newspaper currently are saturated with articles on football, so it’s only natural that I think in those terms (and I apologize to the rest of the world for any confusion caused by the fact that we Americans use the word “football” to refer to a game that doesn’t use feet much at all and use “soccer” to refer to the other “football” game).

I enjoy referring to this caterpillar as the Steelers caterpillar, though, of course, it has a “real” name, which I think is a Smartweed caterpillar (Acronicta oblinita). Some US states have state insects, so I wonder if the Steelers would welcome a fuzzy new mascot. This could be the start of a trend and a marketing opportunity—there are more than enough caterpillar types around for each team to adopt its own.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Glory bee

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, bee, bumblebee, Canon 50D, morning glory, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© 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 Canon 50D, Gray Hairstreak butterfly, hairstreak, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond VA, Strymon melinus, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© 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 Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, crabapples, Limenitis arthemis astyanax, Red-spotted Purple butterfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Red-footed Cannibalfly

Posted in Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Promachus rufipes, Red-footed Cannibalfly, robber fly, Tamron 180mm macro lens on August 31, 2013| 39 Comments »

If you were an insect or even a hummingbird, you would definitely not want to encounter this large insect with the macabre moniker of Red-footed Cannibalfly (Promachus rufipes), also known as the Bee Panther.

This insect is considered to be a giant robber fly. Robber flies in general are predators that wait for their prey to fly by and then attack it. Wikipedia describes the attack in this way, “The fly attacks its prey by stabbing it with its short, strong proboscis injecting the victim with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes which very rapidly paralyze the victim and soon digest the insides; the fly then sucks the liquefied material through the proboscis.”

It’s hard to believe that a fly could actually take down a hummingbird, but bugguide, which I have found to be a good reference for insects, notes that there have been reports of a Red-footed Cannibalfly attacking a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

When I first saw this insect fly by, I thought it was some strange kind of hairy dragonfly, but the more that I looked at it, the more I realized that it was not a dragonfly—the eyes and wings were all wrong. I have spotted several of these flies already, but so far have not seen any with captured prey.

I came across a wonderful commentary on these insects in a blog called Ohio Birds and Biodiversity that sums up my feelings about them—”Be thankful these insects aren’t the size of Sandhill Cranes.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Grasshopper close-up

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, close-up, grasshopper, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens on August 30, 2013| 7 Comments »

My goal for this photo was pretty simple—move slowly toward this grasshopper and get a good close-up shot. I think that I achieved my goal. I love shooting with my macro lens.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Swallowtail and cardinal flower

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, cardinal flower, Huntley Meadows Park, Lobelia cardinalis, swallowtail butterfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens 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.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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