Deep into the summer, flowers are blooming everywhere. Flowers attract bugs, and bugs attract my camera. As I do every year, I’ve dug out my macro lens and gone tromping through fields and meadows in search of small flying insects to photograph.
Today’s collection features our bee friends, and some other friends that look similar to bees but aren’t.
It was a dark and steamy morning…The clouds offered conflicting gifts. Limited light made photography a challenge. On the other hand, with dew points in the 70s, the absence of the blazing sun was a relief. There was a dense layer of mist hovering over the surface of the creek, and the woods were cool. But my destination this morning was the meadows where patches of milkweed could be found. Continue reading
BUZZ BIXBY: Good Morning and Happy Harvest to you! 
Welcome to Critter Radio’s broadcast of the 73rd Annual Harvest Festival Pollinator Parade, right here on 99.9 KRTR!
I’m Buzz Bixby…
CECILY SWALLOWTAIL: … and I’m Cecily Swallowtail…
BUZZ BIXBY: …and we’re your hosts for this wonderful panorama of floats, performers, balloons and marching bands, all celebrating pollinating insects and their buggy friends. It’s a beautiful day for a parade… Continue reading
FUN FACT: Sunflowers are composite flowers, where all is not what it seems. What look like petals are actually infertile ray flowers that attract vital pollinator species to the plant. The center of the sunflower is made up of hundreds of small flowers, each with five petals, a male stamen and a female stigma, where pollination takes place.
Grasshopper.
Soybean pods.
Squash.
Wheel Bug, Arilus cristatus.
FUN FACT: One of a group of true bugs known as assassin bugs, in the ambush bug family, Reduviidae. They eat soft-bodied insects, stink bugs and, as we witnessed, bees. A wheel bug injects enzyme-laced saliva into its prey, which paralyzes the victim and liquefies their internal parts, which the wheel bug proceeds to consume. Yuck! Adding to their allure, they inflict a painful bite on humans.
They have their good side, though; many of their preferred prey are pests, so they are welcomed in gardens and on farms. And they just look cool.
This gourd looked just like a goose to me. I took him home and cleaned him up.
Behold – Gourdon Goose.
Left behind.
Looking back on a fun fall day on the farm.
Little Blue Heron, Juvenile
This time, I did it right. After months of not putting myself in position to make good nature images, of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong equipment doing the wrong thing – this time I did it right.
Killdeer
Right time? Early morning when the light is good and the wildlife is active – check.
Sora
Right place? The boardwalk at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, where interesting birds like Soras and Virginia Rails and Glossy Ibises have been the talk of the town, and social media, for weeks – check.
A small bug casts a big shadow
Right equipment? Binoculars and Canon 7D Mark II camera with the 100-400mm lens, in my hands and not back in the car – check.
Marsh Wren, juvenile
Doing the right thing? Two hours of watching and waiting patiently, on my own, instead of rushed by the need to keep up with fast-moving friends – check.
Sora
The result? Actual photos of wildlife! Killdeer. Sora.
Green Heron
Little Blue Heron. Green Heron, at the top of a tree, no less!
Bug standoff
Even a stand-off between two bugs on a leaf.
Killdeer
This is where the wild things are.
And I think we found the wildlife photographer.
The Wild Edge 