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Posts Tagged ‘Tamron 180mm’

Female Autumn Meadowhawk

Posted in Autumn, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 26, 2018| 4 Comments »

Now that fall has officially arrived, I look forward to seeing more Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies (Sympetrum vicinum), like this stunning female that I spotted last Friday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Adult males of this dragonfly species are bright red in color, but females can be either tan or red. The “spike” near the end of the abdomen makes it easy. though, to identify this one as a female.

In Northern Virginia, where I live, the Autumn Meadowhawk tends to be the latest surviving dragonflies—I have spotted them in mid-December and others have seen them in early January.

Autumn Meadowhawk

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Outside my door

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on September 25, 2018| 4 Comments »

Sometimes I don’t have to venture far to capture images. I took this shot recently of a flower growing out of one of the hosta plants in my front yard as the rain was falling.

Simple colors and shapes and the sparkle of raindrops—photography doesn’t always have to be complicated. The challenge is to slow down, to really see the world around us, and to recognize its inherent beauty.

hosta in the rain

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Drip dry dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2018| 18 Comments »

I don’t expect to see dragonflies flying in the rain, so I was a little shocked to see this one in the air this past weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I captured this shot when it landed and hung vertically in the vegetation in an apparent attempt to drip dry.

I not certain of the identification of this dragonfly, but think it might be a Needham’s Skimmer (Libellula needhami), judging from the markings. Normally Needham’s Skimmers perch horizontally rather than vertically, but the unusual perching behavior might have merely been a consequence of the rainy conditions.

If you click on the image, you can see it in slightly higher resolution, including the tiny drops of water at the lower end of the abdomen (the “tail”).

Needham's Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Natural pearls

Posted in abstract, Arachnids, Art, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on September 23, 2018| 13 Comments »

Raindrops can enhance the beauty of many subjects, like this spider web that I photographed on Friday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. As I looked at the drops, they somehow brought to mind an elaborate necklace of loosely strung pearls.

wet spider web

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Large Milkweed Bug

Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 21, 2018| 3 Comments »

Milkweed plants provide a wonderful habitat for all kinds of creatures, including this Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) that I spotted earlier this week at Green Spring Gardens. These  bugs go through a fascinating series of physical transformations as they move though different nymph phases. A little over six years ago, I studied these bugs  pretty closely and documented their stages of development in a posting that I called Life phases of the large milkweed beetle. Be sure to check it out for more information and fascinating photos of these colorful little bugs.

I really like the combination of colors in this simple shot, colors that remind me a little of Christmas. However, I doubt that anyone would choose to feature this image on their annual Christmas card. 🙂

Large Milkweed Bug

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Equally beautiful butterflies?

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2018| 8 Comments »

Today I decided to feature two butterflies that I have seen over the past week. I saw them at different times and at different places, so normally I would not put them together in a posting.

I was struck, however, by the contrast between the two of them. One of them, a Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus), is brightly colored and hard to miss. The other, a Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) is so pale and nondescript that many people don’t notice it at all or dismiss it as being “only” a moth.

Beauty speaks to people in individual deeply personal ways. I find these two butterflies to be equally beautiful.

What do you think? Instinctively do you find one of these two to be more beautiful than the other?

Of course, there is no “right” answer. It seems to me that beauty is almost always subjective rather than universal. Our assessments of beauty tend to be influenced by a whole host of internal factors including our mood, personality, and background as much as by the external characteristics of the subject being considered.

Viceroy butterfly

Cabbage White butterfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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A few more hummingbird shots

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 19, 2018| 4 Comments »

Normally I don’t do consecutive blog posts of the same subject, but I got such an overwhelmingly positive response yesterday to my images of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) that I decided to post a few more. All of these hummingbirds, the only species found in the eastern part of the US, will probably depart soon to winter in a warmer climate, so I figure I better take advantage of this opportunity while I have it.

The best chance to snap a photo of a hummingbird is when it hovers to gather nectar (or when it is perched), but I managed to capture the first image as the hummingbird was zooming on by. I love its body position.

From an artistic perspective, the second image is my favorite. The background is simplified and less cluttered than in other images and the bright color of the flowers really grabs the viewer’s eyes. The slightly blurred wings are in a wonderful position and help to emphasize the sense that the hummingbird is in motion.

The final shot was taken with a different camera. As I noted yesterday, I was shooting with my 180mm macro lens, but I also had my Canon SX50 superzoom camera with me. It has a long reach, but doesn’t handle fast action very well, so it mostly stayed in the camera bag. When one of the hummingbirds perched in a distant tree, however, I was able to pull it out and use it for this static portrait.

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Hummingbirds in mid-September

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 18, 2018| 11 Comments »

It was cloudy and there was intermittent rain, but some Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) were active at Green Spring Gardens yesterday. My macro lens might not have been the optimal choice for photographing them, but it is what I had on my camera and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

As I have noted many times before, I really like my macro lens, a Tamron 180mm lens. Because of the crop sensor of my Canon 50D DSLR, the lens has an equivalent field of view of 288mm, which lets me use if as a telephoto lens in a pinch. The only down side of the lens is that it does not have any image stabilization so I have to pay attention to my shutter speed and/or use a monopod as I was doing yesterday.

I noted that the hummingbirds seemed to like a particular kind of flower, so I planted myself in front of a patch of them and waited. The hummingbirds returned several times and I was able to decent shots. As I was waiting, it began to rain a bit, so I opened my umbrella and kept shooting—the hummingbirds did not seem to mind the light rain. It must have been quite a sight to see me with my umbrella in one hand and my camera on the monopod in the other.

For those of you who are interested in camera settings, I was shooting at ISO 1600 in aperture-preferred mode with an aperture setting of f/5. The relatively poor lighting meant that my shutter speed generally was 1/500 or slower, which was not fast enough to freeze the motion of the wings, but did allow me to capture the body fairly well when the hummingbird hovered.

I have a few more hummingbird shots that I may use in another posting, but wanted to share these initially.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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Zooming with your feet

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged , , , , , on September 17, 2018| 12 Comments »

When you shoot with a zoom lens, you can change the look of an image without moving from where you are standing. That can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage, because it can discourage you from exploring different angles or different perspectives.

I really enjoy shooting with a lens of a fixed focal length, especially my macro lens, because it forces me to think more about composition. If I decide that I want the subject to be larger in the frame, I have to move physically closer to the subject. If the terrain doesn’t let me get any closer, then I have to consciously consider how else I could frame the shot.

This past weekend I saw a lot of black and yellow garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) when I was exploring Jackson Miles Wetland Refuge, a small park not too far from where I live. Some of the spiders were in bushes and others were overhanging the water of a small pond. It was a fun challenge to figure out how to photograph the spiders in different and interesting ways.

In the first shot, I decided to shoot the spider from the side rather than from the front as I normally do. I was delighted to see the way the the shape of the vegetation in the background almost matched the shape of the spider’s legs.

I also photographed the spider in the second image from the side, but the leafy backdrop and the inclusion of more of the spider’s web gives the image a completely different feel as compared to the first one.

When I saw the spider in the third image overhanging the water, I loved the shape of its body and its extended legs. If I had had a zoom lens, I am pretty sure I would have zoomed in on the spider. When processing the image, I was also tempted to crop in closely. I remember when I was shooting, though, that I deliberately included the vegetation on the left hand side, because I liked the way that it looked. So the image that you see is pretty much the one that I chose when I shot it, having zoomed in as closely as my feet would allow (without getting really wet). Despite my normal desire to fill my frame with my subject, I think it was good that I was not able to do so in this case.

argiope spider

argiope spider

argiope spider

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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September dancer

Posted in damselfly, Dragonflies, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 16, 2018| 7 Comments »

On Friday I was delighted to capture this image of one of my favorite damselflies, the beautifully colored Variable Dancer (Argia fumipennis), while exploring Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. The red and yellow colors of the vegetation are vaguely autumn-like, a reminder that the clock is ticking for the end of the dragonfly/damselfly season this year. If only I could slow down the passage of time.

Variable Dancer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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Like a stained glass window

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 15, 2018| 7 Comments »

I was thrilled yesterday to see that at least one Swift Setwing dragonfly (Dythemis velox) is still present at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. Based on past records, the Swift Setwings should be with us at least until the end of September, but this has been a crazy year weatherwise, so I never know whether the different dragonflies will appear and disappear on schedule.

If you look really closely at the wings of this dragonfly, you’ll discover some really cool shapes and patterns—-not all of the individual “cells” in the wings are of the same shape and size. Together they form an intricate mosaic that reminds me of a stained glass window. (I encourage you to click on the image to see it in higher resolution.)

Swift Setwing

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Working on a web site

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 14, 2018| 11 Comments »

On Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge I watched with fascination as this spider (maybe a Marbled Orbweaver (Araneus marmoreus) spider) worked on her web. She seemed to have started with the spokes coming out of the middle and was adding the ribs when I photographed her.

If you look closely in the first image, you can actually see the web material coming out of one of her spinnerets, the organs in which a spider produces the different kinds of silk that make up a web. I tried to figure our her process as I observed her. It looks like she would produce a length of silk, maneuver it into place on one of the spokes with one or more of her legs, affix it in place, and then start the process over again. For the final image, I moved back a little to give you a somewhat better view of more of the web and a sense of its shape.

I have photographed spiderwebs many times before, but this was the first time that I watched one being built. My admiration for the skills and artistry of spiders continues to grow—they are simply amazing.

spider making web

spider making web

spider making web

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

 

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Big Bluet damselfly in September

Posted in damselfly, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 12, 2018| 6 Comments »

It was cool and wet on Monday and clouds covered the entire sky, but I felt an irresistible need to return to the wild after a week in the urban confines of Brussels, Belgium. Many of the trails at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, my recent favorite shooting location, were blocked by standing water and there was not a great abundance of wildlife to be seen.

Most dragonflies prefer warm, sunny weather, so I was not surprised when I did not see many of them. I was happy, though, to see that damselflies were active and I spent quite a bit of time trying to capture images of them. They seemed more skittish than normal and the poor lighting made it tough to keep my shutter speed high enough to keep my images from being blurry.

This is one of my favorite damselfly shots of the day. I was able to isolate the subject, which I believe is a male Big Bluet (Enallagma durum) damselfly, while still including enough of the vegetation to give you a sense of the environment in which I found him.

Big Bluet

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Dramatically uncommon

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 10, 2018| 5 Comments »

The directional lighting from the back and side gave a cool and dramatically uncommon vibe to this image of a Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) that I photographed on 31 August at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

The ground is saturated and rain continues to fall, so I am not sure that I will be out and about today with my camera. It is actually a good thing, I think, to go back and look over my photos—I sometimes get so caught up in taking new photos that I don’t stop and look over my slightly older ones. I am often pleasantly surprised to discover some jewels, like this image.

Common Buckeye

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Sweet summer nectar

Posted in Autumn, Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 9, 2018| 9 Comments »

The incessant rain and cooler weather since my return from Brussels make it feel like it’s already autumn. Like this Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, however, I am not quite ready to cease sipping the sweet nectar of summer.

I captured this image on 31 August, the day before my departure for my recent overseas trip. The combination of rainy weather can jet lag have so far kept me from venturing out with my camera, but I hope to do so this coming week.

monarch butterfly

© 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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Arrowhead Orb Weaver spider

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2018| 8 Comments »

When you check out spider webs really carefully, you can often discover really cool-looking tiny spiders, like this Arrowhead Orb Weaver spider (Verrucosa arenata) that I spotted yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. If you look really closely in between its uppermost legs, you can see some of its multiple eyes looking straight at you. Information on BugGuide.net indicates that this spider is unusual because it rests in the web with its head up, not head down like most other Orb Weavers.

It’s hard to get a sense of scale when you look at this image, but I’d estimate that this little spider was less than an inch in length (25 mm). It was hanging in the air in its web at the edge of a trail when I first spotted it. I was able to move in pretty close with my macro lens—unlike many other spiders, it did not scurry away to the edge of the web. Sharpness is always an issue when shooting at at close range, but my monopod helped to steady me enough to get a relatively sharp image.

You may not like spiders, but you have to admit that this is a cool-looking spider.

Arrowhead Orb Weaver

© 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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Photographing nothing?

Posted in abstract, Art, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2018| 9 Comments »

Sometimes when I have my camera in my hands, my attention is drawn to the amazing shapes, colors, and pattern of the natural world—I don’t need a specific animate subject to shoot. Here are a few of my more abstract shots from Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Even though I may not have had a main subject, in the traditional sense,I wouldn’t say that I was photographing nothing—au contraire, I was photographing everything.

ferns

grass

lily pads

© 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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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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Coiled

Posted in abstract, Art, Flowers, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 18, 2018| 8 Comments »

Many of us are old enough to remember when wall phones had long coiled cords that usually ended up stretched out and elongated. That’s exactly what I was thinking of when I spotted these coiled tendrils of some kind of flower yesterday when I was exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

I wasn’t sure how to capture them in an image and tried a couple of different approaches. The image below was my favorite. It is kind of a natural abstract image, but I included the flower in the corner of it to give the image a sense of context.

Those who read my postings regularly know that this is not the usual kind of photo that I post—sometimes it is fun to venture outside of my normal box.

coil

© 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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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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