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Posts Tagged ‘Tamron 180mm macro lens’

Widow Skimmer in the distance

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , on June 21, 2014| 3 Comments »

Although I usually try to get close up for my dragonfly photos, I am unusually pleased with this image I took yesterday of an immature male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa), which has an artistic quality that is not always found in my close-ups.

For those who might be curious about the identification, the white on the wings indicates that it is a male (females have only dark blotches) and the yellow and black body indicates that it is immature,because adult males have bluish-colored bodies.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Unicorn Clubtail

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on June 21, 2014| 5 Comments »

Do you believe in unicorns? I spent part of yesterday chasing a flying unicorn, although it was the Unicorn Clubtail dragonfly (Arigomphus villosipes), not the one that looks like a horse.

Normally Unicorn Clubtails like to perch on flat surfaces, but this one chose to perch on a dead branch overlooking the muddy stream, allowing me to get a good look at it and a decent photograph.

Many people seem to like unicorns and rainbows. Now that I have captured a unicorn, I’m on the lookout for a rainbow–and it looks like it may rain later today.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Common Baskettail dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on June 19, 2014| 8 Comments »

A few weeks ago, I did a posting with some close-up images of a Common Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca cynosura), but one of my fellow photographers keeps reminding me that I have not posted any shots of the entire dragonfly, which it turns out is not all that common in our local marshland park.

This small collection of images highlights some of the notable features of the Common Baskettail dragonfly, including its beautiful blue eyes and unusual tail. I took these photographs a month ago (on 19 May), but I have fallen a bit behind on viewing and processing my shots.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Spangled Skimmer dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on June 17, 2014| 13 Comments »

This dragonfly has such distinctive markings that I should have been able to identify it easily, but I had never seen one like it before, so I didn’t know what it was.

Fortunately, a short time later that day I ran into local dragonfly expert and fellow blogger Walter Sanford, who informed me that it was a Spangled Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula cyanea). Spangled Skimmers have black and white stigmas on their wings, which makes them unique among dragonflies in my part of Northern Virginia. As you may be able to guess from my images, Spangled Skimmers are among the species of dragonflies that like to perch, which makes it easier to photograph them—if you can find them.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Colorful spider

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2014| 8 Comments »

One of my fellow photographers excitedly pointed out a small spiderweb to me as I was preparing to leave my local marsh and I moved closer to investigate. At the center of the web was a small colorful spider of a type which I had seen before, but had never identified. I realized that I must have a peculiar reputation when others start to get excited about spiders on my behalf.

I felt obliged to take some photos, given that my friend had gone to the trouble of spotting the spider for me, but I didn’t have any great expectations that they would turn out well. The spider was small and the angle of the web made it a little tough to keep everything on a single plane (and I was handholding the shot at close range).

I really admire the artistry of spiders and their webs, however, and have not seen many this spring, so I took quite a few images and was pleasantly surprised with the result. The spider probably is an Orchard Orbweaver spider (Leucauge venusta) or possibly the similar Leucauge argyra. As you may note, this is a kind of long-jawed spider with legs of differing lengths. It is an ongoing mystery to me how the spider is able to weave an intricate, symmetrical web with such asymmetrical appendages.

Out of all of the subjects that I photograph, spiders tend to be the most polarizing—readers tend to find spider images to be either creepy or beautiful. I hope that the majority of readers will view this colorful little spider as beautiful.

 

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Robber fly

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , on June 9, 2014| 14 Comments »

As I was getting ready to leave my local marshland park on Friday, I spotted what I thought was a small dragonfly. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a robber fly, subduing a captured prey.

There are a lot of varieties of robber flies in the Asilidae family and I am not sure which kind this is, but robber flies have a reputation for being really vicious predators.

Wikipedia describes their hunting method in these words, “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.”

I guess we can all be thankful that robber flies are not big enough to hunt humans—except perhaps in science fiction movies.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Now, Dasher…

Posted in Art, Christmas, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on June 8, 2014| 6 Comments »

What do you think about when you hear the word “dasher?”  From my early childhood days, the word meant only one thing—it was the name of one of Santa’s reindeer.

Many of us grew up hearing these familiar words from the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” (“A Visit From St. Nicholas“) by Clement Clarke Moore:

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

So, every time I see a Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis), like this beautiful male that I photographed this weekend, I can’t help but have a little thought of Christmas, even on the hottest days of summer.

But Santa, some may complain, didn’t have a blue Dasher. That’s true, of course, but Elvis had no problem singing of a Blue Christmas, the perfect setting for a Blue Dasher. (Click here to watch a You Tube video of Elvis singing this signature tune.)

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Daddy’s watching you

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on June 7, 2014| 16 Comments »

Daddy longlegs have a single pair of eyes, oriented sideways, in the middle of their heads and it’s a little disconcerting to peer through a macro lens and see one of these eyes looking toward you. Daddy longlegs (also known as harvestmen) belong to the arachnid family, but are not spiders. Harvestmen make up the order Opiliones and, according to Wikipedia, there may be as many as ten thousand species of harvestmen worldwide, with over 6500 already discovered.

I cropped the first shot of the harvestman to allow you to see the eyes better, but it doesn’t really give you a sense of the length of the legs. The second shot, which is actually a less-cropped version of the first one, shows you more of the legs. I did crop out the ends of the outermost legs, though, to keep the body from looking too small.

 

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Dragonfly up close

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2014| 8 Comments »

Have you ever looked really closely at a dragonfly? I expected to be able to see its beautiful colors, but I was a little surprise to see how many little hairs were present on the face and body of this Common Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca cynosura) that I encountered in mid-May at my local marsh.

I was standing in one of my favorite spots, at the edge of a beaver pond, when this dragonfly flew in and perched a few feet away from me. I don’t know if it was resting or napping or simply didn’t mind my presence, but it allowed me to get amazingly close to it. I was able to take quite a few shots of it and even was able to set up my tripod (although there was so much underbrush that it was tough to get a really stable base).

As you can see from the first shot, depth of field was an issue for me when I moved in this close and I didn’t manage to keep all of the legs in focus. I took the second shot from a bit further back and more of the dragonfly is in focus.

Want a new view on life? Try looking at the world through a macro lens and you’ll see some amazing things.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Skink

Posted in Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Reptiles, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2014| 10 Comments »

Is it just me, or does the word “skink” sound funny to you? Certain words simply sound odd to me and for some reason “skink” is one of them—I can’t help but smile whenever I say the word out loud.

Recently I took this shot of a Common Five-lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus, formerly Eumeces fasciatus) at my local marshland park. It was sunning itself on a rotten log and didn’t detect my presence immediately and run away, which is what usually happens when I spot a skink. It seems to have its head cocked a little and has a smile on its face, as though daydreaming, as I do when sunbathing.

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I wonder if you could use “skink” as a verb to describe the crawling-type behavior typical of a skink, as in, “I saw my friend skinking about.” If “skink” were a verb, would it follow the model of “drink,” with verbal forms that included “skank” and “skunk?”  That might induce a bit of confusion, I suppose, since “skank” suggests a different kind of behavior, as does “skunk.” English can be a strange language.

I’ll just continue smiling.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Adulthood

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2014| 6 Comments »

Yesterday I wrote of a male Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis) transitioning to adulthood, but I realized this morning that not all viewers know what an adult male pondhawk looks like.

This first shot shows an adult male Eastern Pondhawk perched above a big mass of algae, duckweed, and other “stuff” at a small pond at a local garden. Originally I was frustrated when the dragonfly flew into this mess and did not perch above the cleaner water of the pond. I wasn’t sure if I could get a clear shot with all of the clutter, but was pleasantly surprised with the result. I actually like the bubbles in the foreground and the texture and visual interest that it adds to the shot.

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I took the second shot in a totally different environment, at the edge of a field. It shows the bright green coloration of the Eastern Pondhawk female (and young males). My local dragonfly expert, Walter Sanford, keeps reminding me that one of the keys to differentiating the genders is the terminal appendages and I think this one is a female.

pondhawk2_blogWhen you take the blue from the top photo and the green from the bottom one, you get the color combination of yesterday’s posting. As for me, I find the colors to be exceptionally beautifully individually as well as in combination.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Ladybug loving

Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2014| 10 Comments »

It’s difficult not to feel a bit like a voyeur when you spot a pair of ladybugs mating. They consummate the act in public view and their bold coloration makes them almost impossible to miss. Still, there is just something loveable about ladybugs and I doubt that many readers will find these images objectionable.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Too close?

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on June 1, 2014| 14 Comments »

As I was observing dragonflies on Friday at Huntley Meadows Park, a female Swamp Darner dragonfly (Epiaeschna heros) decided that the spot right next to me was the perfect place for her to deposit some eggs. She seemed to fly right at me and then veered just slightly to the left and began to arch her back in the way that dragonflies do when ovipositing.

I was really close to this female dragonfly, so close that my 180mm macro lens might actually have been too much lens for the situation. This was an unusual situation for me—I am usually trying to get closer and closer to a subject. As dragonflies go, Swamp Darners are really large, as much as 4 inches (10 cm) in length.

I didn’t dare move back for fear of scaring her away, so I slowly moved my upper body to try to frame the action. These shots show a couple of the different body positions of the dragonfly as she deposits her eggs.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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To crop or not to crop?

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2014| 14 Comments »

To crop, or not to crop—that is the question. At a certain point in time when we are processing our images, we are all come face to face with this question. To some photographers, composing perfectly in the camera is the ultimate virtue, and they take pride in the fact that they do not crop (and object when their images are cropped).

Moose Peterson is one prominent photographer who does not crop and he explained his views in a fascinating blog posting in 2012 entitled, “The Crop Revisited.” I am still pondering one of his conclusions, “When you don’t give yourself the option to “fix it in post,” photographers push themselves. This always make a better click and the story telling, the subject, that passion of that click becomes clearer and clearer.”

Most of us could not live with such a high standard and for various reasons we choose to crop. I am so used to cropping my images that even when I compose an image just the way that I want it, I am tempted to move in closer with my crop. That was my dilemma with this image of a damselfly on the edge of a lily pad, as it was framed when it came out of the camera.

damsel_pad_blogI really like the long sinuous curve on the left and the large expanse of green on the right. I worry, however, that the damselfly is taking up too little space of the image and is not prominent enough. So I cropped a bit and produced a second version.

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That’s not a very extreme crop, but somehow the image feels different to me. Does it make any difference to you? Do you prefer one of the two over the other?

UPDATE: Fellow blogger and local dragonfly expert, Walter Sanford, has identified this for me as an Eastern Forktail damselfly (Ischnura verticalis). Thanks, Walter.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Bee fly

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on May 30, 2014| 6 Comments »

Is it a bee? Is it a fly? It’s a Greater Bee Fly (Bombylius major). What?

This bee fly has to be one of the strangest insects that I have ever seen—it looks like Doctor Frankenstein pieced together an insect from the parts of other insects. Its fuzzy body looks like that of a bee and it has a similar proboscis, though the bee fly’s proboscis seems to be outrageously long. Its long, spindly legs, however, are not bee-like and remind me of certain types of flies. The patterned wings and the way that it hovers are reminiscent of a hummingbird moth, though the bee fly is considerably smaller.

The bee fly is considered to be a bee mimic. Like a bee, it helps pollinate plants when gathering nectar.

I encountered this strange insect when I was examining the little flowers of some allium plants in the garden of my neighbor and fellow photographer and blogger Cindy Dyer. She always has interesting flowers to photograph and I have found an amazing assortment of insects in the garden too.

Greater Bee Fly on allium plant

Greater Bee Fly on allium plant

 

Head-on look at a bee fly

Head-on look at a bee fly

Bee Fly on allium with trellis in background

Bee Fly on allium with trellis in background

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Blue Dasher in May

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on May 29, 2014| 7 Comments »

This past weekend I finally saw one of my favorite dragonflies, the male Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. The Blue Dasher is bright and colorful and likes to perch on protruding vegetation, thereby providing lots of photographic opportunities.

Now that I have seen my first Blue Dashers, I know for sure that summer is almost here.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Fascinating flies

Posted in Art, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , on May 28, 2014| 7 Comments »

Do you ever find yourself looking at flies? No, I don’t mean looking at them with a fly swatter in your hand and murder in your heart and I don’t mean admiring the beautiful colors of butterflies and dragonflies.

What I have in mind is marveling at the variety of more ordinary flies, discovering the details of their amazing eyes and hairy little bodies. Sometimes you have to move in really close and bend down to their level (and a macro lens helps).

When you do, a whole new world opens up.

Here are a few shots of different flies that I’ve encountered recently.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Spider captures dragonfly—the story

Posted in Arachnids, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2014| 30 Comments »

As a follow-up to last week’s preview, here is the complete story of my recent encounter with a Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax) and a female Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis). The photos are a bit graphic, particularly for those of us who like dragonflies, but they illustrate the reality of nature that even super predators like dragonflies can easily become prey.

dragon1A_spider_blogAs I was walking at my local marshland park, I spotted a bright green dragonfly perched on the boardwalk and suspected immediately that it was a female Eastern Pondhawk. I moved in slowly to get a shot and was a bit surprised when the dragonfly did not take off when I got close. This is the initial view I had of the dragonfly.

dragon3_spider_blogI looked closely at the dragonfly and noticed that it was lying on its side and appeared to be dead. Wondering what might have caused its demise, I picked up the dragonfly’s body to do some amateur forensic analysis. (I obviously watched to many televisions shows about crime scene investigations.) As I lifted the body toward my eyes, I was shocked to find that a fuzzy black spider was still attached to it. Apparently the spider had been hiding in the gap between the boards as it feasted on the dragonfly.

Somewhat in shock, I dropped the dragonfly back onto the boardwalk and the fall caused the spider to be separated from its prey. Undeterred, it quickly set off to recapture the dragonfly.

dragon4_spider_blogThe spider grabbed the dragonfly in a headlock and began to drag it back toward the gap between the synthetic boards of the boardwalk. It seemed totally oblivious to my presence.dragon6_spider_blog

When it reached the gap, the spider paused for a few seconds, as though considering possibility of dragging the body through the gap.

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The spider decided to give it a try and did its best to pull the body in, starting with the head.

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Despite the spider’s best efforts, however, the dragonfly’s body was simply too big.

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As I left the scene, the spider had again settled down out of sight below the surface of the boardwalk, happily enjoying its meal and presumably hoping that it would not be disturbed again.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Swamp Darner dragonfly

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on May 24, 2014| 7 Comments »

This might be the most beautiful dragonfly that I have ever photographed, a Swamp Darner (Epiaeschna heros) that I encountered yesterday at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia. Swamp Darners have gorgeous colors, including incredibly striking blue eyes—be sure to click on the image to get a higher resolution view of the dragonfly.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Painted Skimmer dragonfly

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on May 23, 2014| 6 Comments »

My breathing stopped for a moment on Monday when I first caught sight of the colors and patterns of this beautiful dragonfly, a species that I had never seen before.  The dragonfly was flying around near a drainage area just off one of the main trails at my local marshland park. Fortunately for me, the dragonfly landed and I was able to move in pretty close to investigate.

This dragonfly reminded me a little of a Halloween Pennant dragonfly (Celithemis eponina), a gorgeous species with orange veins and brown patches on its wings, but I was pretty certain that this was a different kind of dragonfly. (For comparison, check out my posting on the Halloween Pennant from August 2012 with one of the best photos that I have taken of any dragonfly.)

I am no expert on dragonfly identification, but the wing pattern here is distinctive and I have concluded that this is probably a Painted Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula semifasciata). Not long ago, a friend introduced me to a wonderful resource for dragonflies in my area, a website on Dragonflies of Northern Virginia that is run by Kevin Munroe, the manager of Huntley Meadows Park, the marsh where I take many of my nature photographs, including this one. Here is a link to the portion of that website that covers the Painted Skimmer, including identification features and other fascinating bits of information.

As I maneuvered around composing this shot, I realized how tricky it is to get the proper depth of field for a dragonfly, especially if I want to have the face visible. In this case, the two wings closest to the camera are in focus and the wings farther away are out of focus, along with the background.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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My first butterfly of the spring

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on May 22, 2014| 9 Comments »

I chased this little orange butterfly through the woods for quite some time this past weekend in an effort to get my first butterfly image of the season, a Pearl Crescent butterfly (Phyciodes tharos). It may not be as big and brightly colored as some of the butterflies that I may encounter later in the season, but I find a real beauty in its minimal color palette and intricate design.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Love returns

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2014| 8 Comments »

During a short visit to Green Spring Gardens this past weekend, I was thrilled to see that one of my favorite flowers is starting to bloom, Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). I smile at its name and marvel at its delicate beauty.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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A different kind of spider

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2014| 10 Comments »

When you think of a spider, what kind of body do you imagine? I realize that most people don’t even want to think about spiders—they find them to be creepy and frightening.  For some of us, though, spiders are beautiful creatures with some amazing features.

Still, I don’t usually think of a spider as having a long, thin body, and most don’t. Last week I encountered one that had such a body, which I think is a kind of long-jawed spider from the  Tetragnathidae family. In addition to the elongated bodies, these spiders have legs of varying lengths, with the front pair appearing to be really long.

Spiders apparently come in all sizes and shapes. Who knows what new ones I’ll see in the coming months?

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Lessons in patience

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2014| 11 Comments »

Do you want to learn patience? If so, try photographing dragonflies in flight, those speedy little flyers that patrol the edge of a pond without ever seeming to need a rest.

Several readers commented that I must have lots of patience after they saw the photos of dragonflies and damselflies that I recently posted. Comparatively speaking, however, it is a whole lot easier to photograph these insects when they are perched on a stationary object than when they are in constant motion.

My fellow blogger and photographer, Walter Sanford, a true dragonfly stalker, emphasized to me recently that many of the early spring dragonflies are found only in limited locations for very short periods of time. (Check out his blog for lots of wonderful shots of dragonflies and other wildlife creatures.) I decided to return to Hidden Pond Nature Center, a county-run park in Springfield, Virginia that is only a few miles from where I live. Last year I spotted a few common dragonflies there, and it seemed to be a good place to broaden my search for spring dragonflies.

Sure enough, I caught sight of a few dragonflies, flying low over the surface of the small pond. They seemed to have fairly well defined patrol areas and tended to move about in large, lazy circles. I tried tracking several of them using my camera’s autofocus, but that proved to be impossible, so I switched to manual focusing, which was merely difficult.

I took a few breaks to get some shots of the more cooperative damselflies, but persisted in my quixotic efforts to capture the dragonflies in flight. Over the course of a couple of hours, I managed to fewer than a dozen images that are more or less in focus. I think that my subjects for this shoot might be Common Baskettail dragonflies (Epitheca cynosura), but I’m not very confident in that identification.

My adventures with dragonflies (and wildlife photography in general) continue teach important lessons about the value of patience and persistence.

 

 

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Immature dragonflies

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2014| 14 Comments »

As we move deeper into spring, dragonfly nymphs are emerging from the water and starting their transformed lives as acrobatic flyers. This past weekend I spotted some young male Common Whitetail dragonflies (Plathemis lydia) in different stages of development.

Not surprisingly, adult male Common Whitetail dragonflies have white tails—it seems like most species are named after the characteristics of the male. Check out one of my postings from last year to see what a mature adult male looks like. When they first emerge, however, the males have the same body colors and patterns as the females. Fortunately, it’s easy to tell them apart, because the wing patterns are different in the male and female whitetails. (For more information about these dragonflies, take a look at the pages at bugguide.net.)

The dragonfly in the first shot is well on his way to becoming an adult and was bold enough to be flying over the water. The one in the second shot is younger, and seemed to content to remain in the vegetation at a distance from the open water.

A "tween" male--the abdomen is beginning to turn blue, but the adolescent body pattern still shows

A “tween” male–the abdomen is beginning to turn blue, but the adolescent body pattern still shows

An immature male, with the body pattern of a female and the wing pattern of an adult male

An immature male, with the body pattern of a female and the wing pattern of an adult male

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Luck and skill

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2014| 18 Comments »

I was on my hands and knees last Friday, trying to get a shot of a small wildflower growing on the forest floor, when a bee landed on the very flower on which I was focusing. What are the odds of that happening at the moment when my eye was glued to the viewfinder and I was focusing manually?

The flower was only about four inches (10 cm) tall, which gives you an idea of the low angle from which I was shooting. After a second or two on the first flower (shown in the second shot), the bee moved to an adjacent flower, and I took the image I presented first. It’s interesting to note the narrowness of the depth of field—in the first shot below, I managed to focus on the bee’s head, whereas in the second shot, the focus point was more on the center of its body. I like each of the images for somewhat different reasons, but I am still shocked that I managed to get them.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than skilled.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Damselfly eyes

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on May 11, 2014| 8 Comments »

This is the last image in my mini-series on insect eyes from this past Friday—a close-up of a beautiful little damselfly at Huntley Meadows Park, the local marshland where I take many of my nature photographs. 

Photographing damselflies is particularly challenging for me, because they are so long and skinny (not to mention the fact that they are really small in size). About the only way to get their bodies completely in focus is to be absolutely perpendicular to them. When I took this image, I couldn’t get into the optimal position, thanks to a sharp, thorny bush, so the lower half of the body was out of focus. That is one of the reasons why I chose to crop this image as I did, though the main reason was to focus viewers’ attention on the eyes.

This image shows the wide separation of the damselfly’s eyes, which is one of the ways to tell them apart from dragonflies, the other members of the Odonata family. Dragonflies have eyes that are very close together or even touching each other.

If you missed the earlier postings on insect eyes, check out the images of a fly’s eyes and a dragonfly’s eyes. In all three cases, click on the images, if you want to get a higher resolution view of the insects’ beautiful eyes.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Dragonfly eyes

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2014| 11 Comments »

Yesterday, I seemed to be particularly fascinated by insect eyes and did a posting on a fly, whose compound eyes were pretty amazing. However, dragonflies have the largest compound eyes of any insect and I was thrilled to be able to capture this face-to-face shot of a Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), peering right at me over the edge of a leaf.

A dragonfly’s eyes can have as many as 30,000 facets, known as ommatidia, that contain light-sensitive proteins, according to an article in ScienceBlogs. Although, humans also have these kind of proteins, called opsins, we have only three (red, green, and blue), whereas a dragonfly has four or five, giving it the capability to see colors beyond human visual capabilities. A dragonfly’s eyes also wrap around its head, giving it an incredible field of view. For more information and a more scientific explanation, check out a posting entitled “Super-predators” that Sue did last June in her Backyard Biology blog.

I took this shot in a wooded grassy area adjacent to a pond. It seems that the Common Whitetail dragonflies are hanging out there early in the season and not too many of them are patrolling over the water, as I commonly saw them do last summer. The fact that the dragonfly was not perched on a branch coming out of the water proved to and advantage as I was able to approach pretty closely to it in order to take this shot.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Six-spotted Tiger Beetle

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2014| 12 Comments »

Some insects blend in so perfectly with their environments that they are difficult to spot. That is clearly not the case with this Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) that I spotted yesterday at my local marsh.

The beetle’s metallic green body glistened in the sun and made it stand out against the bark of the fallen tree on which it was perched. It flew away several times when I got close to it, but kept returning, eventually remaining in place long enough for me to get this shot. Click on the image to get a higher resolution view of the beetle, including its textured body and multi-segment antennae.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Fly eyes

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 9, 2014| 16 Comments »

After a week in an urban setting with only a point-and-shoot, I couldn’t wait to get back to my marsh with my trusty Canon 50D in my hands. I kept my macro lens on my camera for most of the time, because the insects seemed much more active than they were only a week ago. Even flies seemed to be good subjects. I photographed this fly hand-held at really close range, which gave me a very narrow depth of field.

The first image is cropped, in order to give you a good look at the fly’s eyes—the second photo is the same image with a much less severe crop.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Red-eared Slider

Posted in Nature, Photography, Portraits, Reptiles, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2014| 8 Comments »

All of nature seems to be speeding up as we move deeper into spring. Even the turtles seem to be moving faster, like this Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) that I spotted recently at a county-run historical garden.

Initially the turtle was swimming around in a small pond (as shown in the second shot). I was pleased that I was able to capture a shot of the turtle as it was emerged from the water onto the shore.

I had my 180mm macro lens on my camera when I caught sight of the turtle and I was reminded of the need to zoom with my feet when using a lens with a fixed focal length. In my zeal to get a bit closer to the turtle, I narrowly avoided sliding down the bank into the water.

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