Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Danaus plexippus, Daucus carota, Huntley Meadows Park, Monarch, monarch butterfly, Queen Anne's Lace, Tamron 180mm on August 17, 2017| 3 Comments »
Although I tend to associate Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) with milkweed, this Monarch was hungrily feeding on Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) this past weekend at Huntley Meadows Park. I am not sure why, but I have seen significantly more Monarch butterflies this summer than in the past few years.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Arachnids, Flowers, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, crab spider, Daucus carota, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Queen Anne's Lace, Vienna VA on July 28, 2014| 10 Comments »
One of my fellow photographers pointed out this cool little crab spider on some Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) during a photo jaunt to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in nearby Vienna, Virginia this past Saturday.
In this first shot, my favorite, the spider seemed to be expressing frustration that his prey had escaped his grasp (or simply wanted to show me his awesome biceps pose). Who knew that spiders have biceps?
Initially I tried to photograph the spider looking down at it, but I had trouble maintaining a steady pose and my shots were blurry. I decided to kneel down and get at eye level with the spider, looking across the plane of the flower, and that seemed to work a bit better. These shots look like they were done with flash, but the EXIF data shows a shutter speed of 1/320, which is higher than the synch speed of my flash, so these were actually done with natural light, with some exposure compensation dialed in.
The second shot, which preceded the first one in time, shows the spider trying to capture a small insect (I think).
The little insect starts to run away.
In vain, the spider crawled after the small insect, but it was too late. When I left the spider, it was at the edge of the flower, looking off into the distance, pondering perhaps what might have been, thinking about the one that got away.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 