Monday, August 22, 2005
Be-pollened Eastern Carpenter Bee
Latin name: Xylocopa virginica
Bees are busy and difficult to photograph. I did however manage to get get this side profile of an Eastern Carpenter Bee covered with a remarkable amount of pollen.
Labels:
bees,
Eastern Carpenter Bee,
invertibrates,
macro,
photography
Phidippus clarus female hiding out on Parsley leaf
Green Bottle Fly on Sweet Pea flower
Jumping spider - Sitticus sp.
Red-banded Leafhopper
Green Bottle Fly on paving stone
Latin name: Phaenicia sericata
I am not normally a fan of flies, but yet I keep on taking pictures of Green Bottle Flies. It's the irridescence. Looking at them face-on is not pretty, I think because they have indentations similar to those one might see on a human skull. Of course, the fact that they start out as maggots in rotting flesh can be off-putting. In any case, horrid or not, this fly was grooming himself on the lovely walkway through our garden when I took its photo.
Since she's gotten new grandkids my mother simply refuses to use cool shots like this as her computer wallpaper. Imagine!
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Long-jawed Orb Weaver on reeds
Old
New
Latin name: Tetragnatha sp.
I re-edited a shot of a female Long-jawed Orb weaver on some bent reeds to bring out the colour more (I blogged about it before). Now the colour is warmer, reminding me of how things look on moist, overcast days. What a spider!
New
Latin name: Tetragnatha sp.
I re-edited a shot of a female Long-jawed Orb weaver on some bent reeds to bring out the colour more (I blogged about it before). Now the colour is warmer, reminding me of how things look on moist, overcast days. What a spider!
Platycryptus on windshield
Old (non colour adjusted)
New (colour adjusted)
Latin name: Platycryptus sp.
Last night I used the GIMP to do more clean up an image I'd already posted to Flickr. The challenge was to reduce the visual influence of the blueness of the windshield on which the spider stands. The spider, thankfully, did not have any natural blue colouration, so turning down blue and magenta saturation accomplished this goal quite well. This allowed the subject to become much more visible relative to its background. Secondarily, I found that the Gimp allows one to define white and black reference colours in its colour spectrum selector tool. Doing this had the effect of removing a blue cast on the spider's white hair that I hadn't noticed earlier. It seems the camera's electronics where overwhelmed by the blue background and added the cast. In addition to removing the cast, the black/white baseline choosing made the whole picture more clearly defined.
I'm glad I've discovered the black/white baseline setting capabilities of the GIMP. It should help make my images much more attractive. I'm sure Photoshop does this very very well too. However, it costs $500.
New (colour adjusted)
Latin name: Platycryptus sp.
Last night I used the GIMP to do more clean up an image I'd already posted to Flickr. The challenge was to reduce the visual influence of the blueness of the windshield on which the spider stands. The spider, thankfully, did not have any natural blue colouration, so turning down blue and magenta saturation accomplished this goal quite well. This allowed the subject to become much more visible relative to its background. Secondarily, I found that the Gimp allows one to define white and black reference colours in its colour spectrum selector tool. Doing this had the effect of removing a blue cast on the spider's white hair that I hadn't noticed earlier. It seems the camera's electronics where overwhelmed by the blue background and added the cast. In addition to removing the cast, the black/white baseline choosing made the whole picture more clearly defined.
I'm glad I've discovered the black/white baseline setting capabilities of the GIMP. It should help make my images much more attractive. I'm sure Photoshop does this very very well too. However, it costs $500.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Male Black and Yellow Argiope
Latin name: Argiope aurantia
This male Black and Yellow Argiope was literally hanging around above a female in her web, waiting patiently to mate. The female is visible here as the earth is visible to an orbiting satellite. One can see the male transferring some sperm to his palps. I read that males of this species die at the end of mating to inhibit other males from getting at the female. After resting for about twenty minutes the female will pick the male off and eat him, but but that time it's too late for other males.
Wolf Spider lateral view
Two-Striped Grasshopper frontal view
Latin name: Melanoplus bivittatus
Well, I don't get too excited about grasshoppers, but Janneke suggested I photograph one she'd caught and was keeping in her bug collection cage. She said that after release it would stick around for a while. True enough, when we placed it on a large hunk of stone it stuck around long enough to take about a dozen photos. They turned out ver well indeed. I used a polarizing filter to cut down on glare from the rock and reflection from the grasshopper.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Fishing spider on stone
Latin name: Dolomedes tenebrosus
This is a good rear view of a female Dark Fishing Spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus). She has a missing leg. This is not as uncommon as I'd have thought before taking so many spider pictures this summer. Perhaps they lose limbs in their nursery web or in territorial combat with others of their species.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Black and Yellow Lichen Moth on flowers
Restored late 1800s mill
Near Brock University and the site of the War of 1812 Battle of Beaver Dams is a fully restored grist mill with accompanying mill pond. Beyond the mill is a spectacular waterfall and lovely river gorge. All of this is home to delightful insect life, including huge Millipedes and gargantuan Fishing Spiders. The skill and devotion put into restoring what once was a dilapited wreck of a mill is inspiring.
"The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent."I'm thankful for more peacable times.
-- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to W. Duane on Aug 8, 1812
Funnel Spider and prey
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Latin name: Agelenopsis sp.
This past Saturday morning I put an ant in a Funnel Spider's web and photographed the ensuing subduing. The results were pretty graphic and kind of sobering. Number 3, shown here, I found especially troubling. One steps on ants, one poisons ants, one watches ants teeming about the garden. One does not always see an ant one has put in a web gaping as he's fatally bitten by a spider.
(2)
(3)
(4)
Latin name: Agelenopsis sp.
This past Saturday morning I put an ant in a Funnel Spider's web and photographed the ensuing subduing. The results were pretty graphic and kind of sobering. Number 3, shown here, I found especially troubling. One steps on ants, one poisons ants, one watches ants teeming about the garden. One does not always see an ant one has put in a web gaping as he's fatally bitten by a spider.
Long-jawed Orb Weaver on reeds
Latin name: Tetragnatha sp.
Long-jawed Orb weavers are neat, but not photogenic. They are too good at camouflaging themselves and don't look enough like regular spiders to stand out in a photo. Thus, when I post one on Flickr I don't expect lots of views, even if it's a photo I think is very good. Bright green grasshoppers are popular though and bright orange Colorado Potato Beetle larvae.
Jagged Ambush bugs on Goldenrod
Latin name: Phymata pennsylvanica
Finally! Got some shots of Ambush Bugs. They were on my list for this summer bigtime. They act a whole lot like Mantids, attacking swiftly from a position of ambush. They have a sucking mouthpart that they stab into their victims and use to suck out their body fluids. Notice the hooked ends on their forelimbs.
Fishing spider frontal view
Latin name: Dolomedes tenebrosus
Nancy found this huge spider on a stone in a creek where we were exploring. The creek flowed through a protected river gorge, providing a great environment for rather large insects to thrive. This is a female Dark Fishing Spider, one of three species of Fishing Spider I've come across in Ontario. It lives in North America east of the Rockies.
Although this individual was large (about 5cm), Nancy soon found an even larger one (about 7cm). I had not expected such large spiders to be found in Ontario outside of a zoo.
Note the missing leg on this spider's left side.
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