Wings for Wednesday

Lots of winged insects about the garden and house at the moment.

A small Cranefly on the kitchen window.



One sunny day there were three Common Darter Dragonflies around the garden pond. All were males. One stayed for several hours and chased away any others which dared to make an appearance.





There continue to be Blue-tailed Damsel Flies from time to time which are still breeding.



I have a wasp nest under my front hedge so I don't hang about there. Occasionally one strays indoors where my rule is 'The only good wasp is a dead one'.




Also found dead in the kitchen was this which was about 6mm long.
Probably an ichneumon wasp though no idea which.



Back outdoors found several Greenbottles



and this black bee.



Not sure what type it is - a miner bee maybe.

Finally there were plenty of hoverflies doing their best to thwart me snapping one in flight.

I Really Shouldn't Laugh at Them

Just a link today. This is a section from the wildlife film 'Animals Are Beautiful People' so be warned it is in CinemaScope type format. While watching this tears of laughter were rolling down my face.

You can see the four and a half minute clip by clicking HERE for the link.

We shoudn't laugh at the misfortunes of others but this is well worth a look.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Congratulations and virtual gold stars go to Glo, Keith and Wilma. Yes indeed they were different parts of a Chinese Lantern Plant.

   

Another plant from my garden for this week's mystery object.

Guess What:


No prizes, just for fun.

The collage pictures are put together using Comic Life which I have found to be versatile enough to use for more than just making comics.

Bumblebees Sleeping on Flowers - Update

After my observations last Friday I did a bit of Googling on the subject of Bumblebees apparently sleeping on or in flowers overnight.. It turns out that some do, especially males towards the end of the breeding season when the females have no use for them. As for my observation that they sometimes seem to freeze while feeding on flowers. Again this can and does happen. They need an internal body temperature of 30C to be able to fly and when cold they will stop and appear to shiver as we do to raise their temperature. The day I was watching them the air temperature was about 14C so the bees were having their work cut out to get enough nourishment to enable them to maintain their body temperature. In fact it will take a bee about 5 minutes to raise its temperature in those conditions.

A good source of information can be found HERE at bumblebee.org.

How to stop Bobby using part of the garden.
Yesterday I noticed that Bobby was avoiding visiting his favourite barking position in the garden. It seems that he wouldn't use the path as there was a dead male Blackbird blocking his route. The bird must have flown in to the wall of a shed, probably during one of the many altercations they have over territory. Once the offending corpse had been removed Bobby was quite happy to use all his garden again.

Unidentified Black Caterpillar

While clearing a patch of weeds this morning I spotted this caterpillar. I've looked at photos of black caterpillars until my eyes blurred over but haven't managed to positively trace it as yet. Length nearly 2in (50mm). My best guess is Elephant Hawk Moth.

Friday at the Flicks - Insects Around the Garden

The first set of video clips were taken a few years ago but I don't think I have used them before. Sorry the Broad Bodied Chaser is a bit fuzzy. It must have been taken three years ago as I haven't seen one in the past two summers. It was put together as a practice session using AVS Video Editor.

This originally had the short piece of Ravel's Bolero produced using an old MIDI file played back through a Roland keyboard. Photobucket rejected it as their software assumed it was copyright. YouTube's software assumed it was EMI copyright so I challenged it. To date YouTube have passed it on to EMI for them to check. This version uses a Protracker MOD file in which the composer just asks for acknowledgement if it is used, which I have done at the end of the video.

The soundtrack is a bit louder than I intended:



The second video is of the bumblebees on a lavender plant. I am not sure what is going on with some bumblebees recently. Some seem to spend the night clinging to a flower. Some suddenly stop while feeding and freeze for several minutes before flying away. I have not noticed this happen in the past. Are they near the end of their life span or are they suffering from attack by the same mite which has been decimating honey bee hives?



 Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Optical Illusion

I take the RSS feed from DIYPhotography.net. Today there was reference to an interesting update on an old optical illusion. In the past this has been a 2D static illusion but now you can see it in action as a video. Though a simple illusion it really does make the mind boggle.



Click here for the link to the video on YouTube

If you go there and click on 'Show More' there is an explanation of how it works and even a link to a jpg file so you can try it out, in 2D, for yourself.