Lexigame Community
General Category => Whatever => Topic started by: lilys field on April 10, 2022, 05:21:43 AM
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It’s been a while since we’ve seen your beautiful fascinating endearing pictures here
I, for one, could use a lift
Paula
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Hi Paula
As requested (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=496784365194305)
Pretty Clever (https://www.facebook.com/Taaffeitebordercollies/videos/1140822923406620)
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Thankyouthankyou
The Smile is back
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Here's a bird pic to brighten anyone's day. My trip to Costa Rica in March 2020 had to be abandoned half way through due to Covid, but fortunately not before we visited Rancho Naturalista, a wonderful lodge where this photo was taken.
The aptly named snowcap was my main 'must-see' bird of the trip, and Rancho was the place to see it. These hummers don't visit nectar feeders and none of them seemed to be visiting the plants round the lodge itself. The owner, a lovely lady called Lisa, knew how badly I wanted to see one so she took me to another part of the premises where there were lots of verbena shrubs, much loved by snowcaps, and left me there for a couple of hours. There were at least two males (like this one - the females are much less striking) but they're not easy to photograph as they constantly flit from flower to flower and then fly off to a remote perch. This one very obligingly flew to a much nearer perch at eye level and allowed me to approach closer and closer until I was just a few feet away. Just as I finished snapping away Lisa came to collect me - had she turned up five minutes earlier I'd have missed my golden opportunity. For once Sod wasn't sitting on my shoulder!
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Beautiful, Pat. Thanks for the pic
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Pat! What a jewel.
Exquisite photo & prose. Thanks for sharing the moment.
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Thanks to Jack & Pat.
Really brightened up my day :)
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Sadly, the atrocious February and early March weather in my part of the UK has deprived me of insect photo opportunities, but I might have a couple of butterflies to share when I fire up the laptop ... which had to go into storage for a while because the power supply blew up, and I've only now obtained a replacement ... money I would rather not have been forced to spend during these financially stormy times ...
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I do hope conditions will shift soon, Cal and you’ll be able to share w us some of your encounters with the fascinating world of small creatures
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In the meantime here's a pic of a colourful blue-eyed grasshopper from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Our grasshoppers tend to be drably coloured; many of the ones I photographed in Ecuador were brightly coloured.
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This fellow is quite amazing! absolutely transfixing!
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Lifetime first species encountered during last night's moth trapping - Shoulder Stripe:
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Also found a Brimstone butterfly on my travels ... 2022/03/28:
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Comma Butterfly dated 2022/03/22:
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Another Brimstone butterfly, 2022/03/22:
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A different specimen of the Comma, again 2022/03/22:
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Beyond a Red Admiral or a Cabbage White my knowledge of Butterflies is limited (despite still having the Observer book which was a junior school prize over 50 years ago!) but I think I have seen a couple of Brimstones recently. Is this likely in Cumbria?
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Beyond a Red Admiral or a Cabbage White my knowledge of Butterflies is limited (despite still having the Observer book which was a junior school prize over 50 years ago!) but I think I have seen a couple of Brimstones recently. Is this likely in Cumbria?
Brimstone butterflies are powerful, long range fliers, and can be found anywhere in the UK where Alder Buckthorn trees are growing, as this is the larval foodplant for the species. There are some confirmed past records for Cumbria, so if you're living near woodland with Alder Buckthorn as part of the tree flora, you could very well see this butterfly, the sulphur yellow males being unmistakable on the wing. :)
A few specimens have been recorded as far north as the south-east coast of Scotland most notably near Edinburgh, and there are some records for the OS Grid Reference square containing Stranraer. Past records exist for places such as the Workington area, and the Solway Coast near Silloth. There are numerous records for places such as Kirkby Lonsdale, Carnforth, Ulverston and Bowness-on-Windermere.
Be advised that some of the maps are incomplete, because I was recording the species in my part of Cheshire as far back as 1996, but none of my records show up on the UK Butterflies distribution maps for some reason. However, if you go to the NBN Atlas map for records of this species (link to said map! (https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NHMSYS0000516380)) you'll find that there's a decent cluster of records between Carnforth, Ulverston and Ambleside.
An interactive version of that map can be viewed via this link (https://records.nbnatlas.org/occurrences/search?q=lsid:NHMSYS0000516380&fq=occurrence_status:present&nbn_loading=true#tab_mapView).
Basically, if you want to find out about the distribution of any species of interest, the NBN Atlas maps will give you a good (if sometimes incomplete) idea. I'm still trying to find out why my butterfly records are missing from these maps ... ???
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Thank you for opening the door to the world of small & tiny beings.
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Thank you for opening the door to the world of small & tiny beings.
30 years of study of invertebrates puts me in the position of being able to talk about the subject for hours! :)
Now all I need is someone to pay me to do it :)
Funnily enough, there's a possibility that I could launch a foray into a nearby wood today, so just in case that possibility is realised, watch this space :)
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I will attempt to identify any Alder Buckthorn present in the woodland we were walking in when acouple of yellow butterflies flew past. I am in Kendal so close at hand to where the reports of Brimstone sightings have been reported and the woodland I was in sounds to have the right conditions for the growth of this plant. Thanks for the information.
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Three more male Brimstones spotted on my travels today, two of which remained still for the camera. Two different specimens illustrated below:
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Today's prize specimens ... female Holly Blue and female Orange Tip ... (only the males have orange markings, by the way):
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Exquisite blue
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If you like blue, Paula, here are a couple of photos you might like.
The butterfly is a brilliant blue skipper that I saw in Colombia. It's not a particularly large butterfly but it was perched on a leaf in the undergrowth and stood out like a beacon. A beautiful insect.
The bird is a red-legged honeycreeper that I saw in Costa Rica.
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Your gloriously iridescent blue skipper butterfly is Paches loxus. There are two similar subspecies: Paches loxus gloriosus is found from SE Mexico to Costa Rica, while Paches loxus loxus is found from Panama southwards into Amazonian South America.
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Meanwhile, today saw the appearance of the Holly Blue on my patch:
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This photo probably shows the shade of blue best of all:
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And, to my surprise with this usually skittish species, I managed to get this close:
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Glorious is the word!
O my
Stunning!
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Paula summed it up perfectly! Amazing pictures :)
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If someone would like to give me a reminder, I've a nice collection of new photos to drop in here ... I've been pretty active lately on the insect survey front, and I've a brace of eye catching specimens waiting for everyone's perusal. :)
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And now, it's time for the new arrivals!
First off ... I engaged in an expedition to find Green Hairstreak butterflies at a location called Flaxmoss, near Hatchmere in Cheshire.
i and my colleague had to negotiate several fallen trees to reach the site, which was a peat bog requiring the wearing of substantial wellies to negotiate. :)
At first we thought the weather was going to ruin the day, but then the clouds parted, the sun shone, and we came away from the expedition "Mission Accomplished", so to speak!
Among the goodies were a female Large Red Damselfly, a bright gold beetle I've since had identified as Plateumaris discolor, and five Green Hairstreaks, two of which posed for the camera. Here's the photos:
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Now for the Dingy Skipper hunt at Ashton's Flash, near Northwich in Cheshire. Again, "Mission Accomplished" :)
Here we see Small Heath, Dingy Skipper, and Small Copper ...
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And also from the Dingy Skipper hunt, my lifetime first encounter with the Burnet Companion moth!
Usually, when I have a "lifetime first" encounter, I see just one or two specimens, but on this occasion, the site was littered with them - over two dozen of them in one small patch alone! This is one of the many I saw:
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Now some of the highlights from a moth trapping session at Alvanley in Cheshire. The first three highlights are the big hawkmoths: Lime Hawkmoth, Elephant Hawkmoth and Eyed Hawkmoth ...
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During the night at Alvanley, we had 32 species or thereabouts, among the stars other than the hawkmoths being the Peach Blossom, Scorched Wing and Small Magpie Moth:
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From a recent outing at Norton Priory near Runcorn, Cheshire, we had Buff-Tip, another Peach Blossom, and Oak Hook-Tip:
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The same night at Norton Priory also yielded Pebble Hook-Tip, Flame Carpet and an amazing looking Green Lacewing:
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Thank you for those stunning photos, the clarity, contrast and composition of many of them was just lovely.
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Seeing C's dragonfly I was reminded of a beautiful blue-winged helicopter damselfly that I saw on a birding trip to Colombia. These are the largest of the odonates, having a wingspan that can reach nearly 20cm although this one wasn't as big as that. They specialize in plucking spiders out of their webs. This one was actually eating a spider although you can't really see it in the photo. It was one of my birds of the trip!
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And how's this for a beauty - a spangled cupid from the Ecuadorian amazon.
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What a fascinating and splendid world. So beautifully captured.
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Ah, Megaloprepus caerulatus. David Attenborough had a fun time filming these!
Tracking down your Helicopis species to species level is troublesome, because all three species (gnidus, cupido and endymieana) have a wide variety of colour forms, and without dissection, it's difficult to tell which one you have. H. gnidus has no less than eight tails on its hindwings!
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Meanwhile, I took part in another moth trapping session on Friday (2022/06/17), and these beauties turned up ... Common Emerald, Blotched emreald and Scorched Wing:
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Also visiting the trap were these:
Brimstone Moth, Light Emerald (we had FIFTEEN of these on the night), and Blood-Vein ...
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And, two each of Poplar Hawk Moth and Elephant Hawk Moth - the latter was pristine, just look at those colours!
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That night brought us 58 species identified on the night, and there's possibly a dozen more to add to the tally.
The Light Emeralds formed their own bomber squadron around the light ... along with the best part of 20 specimens of Clouded Silver and over a dozen Green Oak Tortrix. Definitely a night to remember!
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Whoops, forgot the Peach Blossom!
Usually, we only see single specimens of this species ... on the night in question, we had five - an all time record count for one site :)
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Amazing pictures Calilasseia. The details and colours are incredible. Until you started posting these pictures I had no idea there were so many different moths. Thanks :)
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There are over 2,500 species in the UK fauna alone. Worldwide, the tally is 180,000 species, and no less than 35,000 of those can be found in Peru alone.
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Something a bit different. This delicate and lovely little critter is a spoonwing lacewing (nemoptera sinuata). I saw a couple of them on a recent trip to Bulgaria.
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I'm almost completely clueless about insects, but managed a picture of this which I think might be a cicada emerging. Anyone able to make a positive identification?
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Definitely a cicada although I don't know which species.
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Definitely a cicada although I don't know which species.
Thanks, Pat. Did a bit of reading and seems to be an annual cicada (multiple species here, so I am clueless about that) since the periodic cicadas aren't due this year.
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Did some more reading. According to https://cicadas.uconn.edu/brood_13/
Illinois presents a particular challenge for understanding periodical cicada biology, because it contains both 13 and 17 year life cycles, all 7 currently recognized species, and five separate broods, some of which include disjunct populations.
https://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/common-cicadas-of-illinois/ lists more than twenty species across seven genera and many of the names strike me as confusingly similar ('Dark Lyric Cicada' versus 'Lyric Cicada'; '13-Year Decim' versus '13-Year Decula'); and at least three different species with a common name of '13-Year Cicada' [no wonder people insist on using the scientific name!]). My head is spinning.
But whatever species it was, it was striking in appearance.
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But whatever species it was, it was striking in appearance.
They are indeed. Needless to say, we don't have them in the UK but I always enjoy seeing and hearing them when I'm abroad on my birding trips. Some species 'scream' when handled. I remember managing to catch one in order to release it to a safer spot and was amazed at the noise it made when it was trapped in my hands.
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Speaking of insects that make noises ... Death's Head Hawk Moths squeak like mice when you handle them. :)
Then of course, there's the large array of insects that engage in stridulation (rubbing one part of the body against another to generate sound). Crickets and various Grasshoppers are of course well known stridulators, along with the Cicadas (which are to some people infamous for this!).
However, one group of invertebrates that most people don't usually associate with stridulation, is spiders. But, some of them do indeed stridulate, and I found a particularly striking example a few years back, in the form of Habronattus dossenus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gOiujoR-5o), a member of the Salticidae from Mexico. This one is particularly loud when stridulating for mating call purposes, as you'll hear when you fire up that YouTube video!
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Amazing, although I'm not convinced it was displaying to a live spider.
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Brilliant. Edgy. Awe-full.
Words fail. Please accept a long round of stridulation in gratitude for giving the uninitiated a glimpse of strange, eerie & stunning beings
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And today, I find myself being introduced to a spectacular little bird, in the form of Cissa hypoleuca, the Indochinese Green Magpie. Some nice photos of this can be found here (https://vietnambirds.net/indochinese-green-magpie-yellow-breasted-magpie/).
One for Pat's bucket list perchance?
Sample photo from that website:
(https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_lossless,ret_img,w_600/https://vietnambirds.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Indochinese-Green-Magpie-1-600x429.jpg)
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That's beautiful Calilasseia. I'd swap it for the magpies in my garden in a heartbeat!
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One for Pat's bucket list perchance?
Such a big world. So many birds. So little time.
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One for Pat's bucket list perchance?
Such a big world. So many birds. So little time.
Exactly how I feel about Lepidoptera, only two orders of magnitude more intensely because of the numbers involved ;D
If I find myself in Peru sometime, there's 3,500 species of butterfly to chase down with the camera, and a whopping 35,000 moth species. That's around 25 to 30 lifetimes' worth of study material in one country alone.
But if the chance to do that arose, I would SO much be in my happy place. :)
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Funnily enough I'm going to Peru on Saturday!
It is of course a birding trip, the prime target being a tiny hummingbird called the marvellous spatuletail, a bird that can only be found in a tiny area in north Peru. It will be my second trip to the country. The first was during July of one year, with a company that specialised in Peru birding. The marvellous spatuletail was touted as THE bird to see, but what they unforgivably failed to mention was that July is the absolute worst time to look for it. Even if we'd seen one, which we didn't, the males wouldn't have had their wonderful tail feathers. Although November might be a bit dodgy, weather wise, as it's the start of their wet season, the chances of seeing the bird are much higher.
Here's a link to a 12 second video:
https://youtu.be/ivhKT4ejL4c
One of the places where we'll be spending a couple of nights is the Owlet Lodge in Abra Patricia. I stayed there on my last visit and it was a fantastic place for all manner of insects. I'm hoping they're not seasonal and I see them again this time round.
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Had a sighting I didn't think I would see ... Small White butterfly on the wing near my home ... on November 9th!!!!
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Crossing my fingers for you, Pat, to get a siting.
Happy for you Cal.
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Thanks, lilys field. I'm happy to report that I did in fact see this little beauty yesterday and got some reasonable pics. Once I'm home and have sorted them out I'll post one.
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Meanwhile ... change of subject ... fish.
I've been doing the rounds of a few aquarium shops in my locality, and I've found some real beauties to share with everyone here ... let's start the ball rolling with this little lot:
[1] Juvenile Koran Angelfish, Pomacanthus semicirculatus
[2] Royal Gramma, Gramma loreto
[3] Magnificent Firefish, Nemateleotris magnifica
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Next up, we have:
[1] Badgerfish, Lo vulpinus
[2] Purple Tang, Zebrasoma xanthurus
[3] Pyjama Cardinal Fish, Sphaeramia nematoptera
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Next up, we have:
[1] Flame Angelfish, Centropyge loricula
[2] Red Sea Peacock Wrasse, Macropharyngodon bipartitus
[3] Juvenile Emperor Angelfish, Pomacanthus imperator
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Next up, we have:
[1] Indian Butterfly Fish, Chaetodon mitratus
[2] Spotted Tang, Zebrasoma gemmatum
[3] Royal Empress Angelfish, Pygoplites diacanthus
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Next up, we have:
[1] Longnosed Butterfly Fish, Forcipiger flavissimus
[2] Orchid Dottyback, Pseudochromis fridmani
[3] Banggai Cardinal Fish, Pterapogon kauderni
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And I'll round off the selection for now with:
[1] Bermuda Blue Angelfish, Holacanthus bermudensis
[2] Coral Beauty Angelfish, Centropyge bispinosa
[3] Bicolour Angelfish, Centropyge bicolor
Couple of notes to make at this point - in the case of the larger Angelfishes (Pomacanthus and some of the Holacanthus species), these undergo a dramatic colour change from juvenile to adult. If you check out the species in that Genus, and see just how radical the colour changes are, you'll understand why these fishes are popular with the lucky people who can afford to buy and house them. Though in the case of Holacanthus ciliaris, the Queen Angelfish, that adds to the expense the fact that to grows to be 20 inches long, and as a consequence needs a 5,000 gallon aquarium if you're going to house it properly ...
Several of the larger Wrasses also undergo significant colour changes, though some of these are too big for the home aquarium, and are usually only seen in public aquaria as a result.
Then you have the fishes that undergo sex changes. The various Fairy Basslets in the SubFamily Anthiinae are prime examples - these gorgeously coloured fishes begin life as female, and the largest female changes into a male when the resident male in the shoal dies (or is removed via predation). One of the most resplendent of these is the Princess Fairy Basslet, Pseudanthias smithvanizi, which is one of the true "catwalk stars" of the animal kingdom in terms of colouration.
Meanwhile, a fish that will really leave you with your eyes on stalks when you see it, is the Mandarin Fish, Synchiropus splendidus, which has pretty much every colour of the rainbow somewhere on its body. Also featured in the line up of "wow, look at that" fish are Stonogobiops yasha, the Hi-Fin Clown Goby, Equetus lanceolatus, the Jack-Knife fish, and Platax batavianus, the Zebra Batfish (in its outlandish juvenile form).
One that you sadly won't see in the aquarium, because no one has cracked the secret of keeping it alive in captivity, is Pseudanthias tuka, the Purple Queen. A photo of this beauty in the wild can be viewed here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudanthias#/media/File:Pseudanthias_tuka.jpg).
And now, time to take a break. :)
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From the sublime to the ridiculous...
Two photos from Peru. The bird is a tiny hummingbird called the marvellous spatuletail. Not the best quality because the light was poor and these birds don't sit still for long. The second is (I think) some sort of mantis. It was less than 2cm long and it was only when it moved its head to look at me that I was sure I wasn't photographing a bird dropping!
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A couple of moth pics for Calilasseia:
Saffron playboy ((Xanthiris flaveolata) and a tiger moth (amaxia pulchra). Two beauties.
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If you're still in Peru, there's a butterfly for you to look out for ... bearing the wonderful taxonomic name of Styx infernalis.
Not especially remarkable in appearance, but it caused headaches for taxonomists for over a century. When I've had my night's kip, remind me to tell you the story. :)
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Warning: Mush Alert
Because you bring clarity to the worlds we so often fail to see
With startling specifity, vividly capturing moments of their spans
I think you open our hearts & minds to recognizing how big & small is this universe we share
Thank you Pat & Cal. Happy Valentines Day
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Why thank you, lilys field. I'm glad you enjoy the photos. I'm off to Costa Rica next week. It will be my 4th trip there, so while I've already seen many of the more common birds I'm hoping to find some new weird and wonderful insects.
A happy Valentine's day to you, too.
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Happy, safe journeys, pat. Write when you can
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Thanks, Paula (I think you're Paula). I'm hoping to get some nice pics for my collection.
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Bleh, forgot to follow up on the matter of Styx infernalis ...
This is a white butterfly with deep brown or black wing veins, and probably would not attract much attention from anyone from the UK.
However, this butterfly caused headaches for taxonomists for over a century.
The reason for this?
When butterflies are dissected, in professional scientific work, it becomes pretty obvious in a short period of time, where your specimen will fit in the Lepidoptera family tree.
Skippers (Family Hesperiidae), for example, pretty much stand out from all the other Families very quickly indeed, and likewise, it's pretty easy to allocate a specimen to the Family Papilionidae (Swallowtails etc.), because these tend to be pretty unmistakable as well.
Two Families that sometimes require a little more work are the Lycaenidae (Blues, Coppers, Hairstreaks and relations), and the Riodinidae (Metalmarks). Separating them occasionally requires extra attention to detail, but usually, this isn't a big problem, because each Family has its own set of anatomical idiosyncrasies, that once found, make the placement of any newly discovered species more time consuming than actually difficult. At least, once you've gained the requisite experience and know what to look for.
Then along came Styx infernalis . Which threw a whole bag of spanners into the process.
This is because this otherwise unassuming little butterfly, when first examined, appeared to be a "parts bin" special, with anatomical features taken from no less than four different Families. Or so it seemed, even when microscopes were brought into play.
As a consequence, this butterfly has been moved around the Lepidoptera family tree to a hilarious extent. Some taxonomists placed it in the Lycaenidae, others in the Danaidae, yet others in the Riodinidae, and at least one taxonomist decided that it was such an anatomical outlier that it deserved its own Family, the Stygidae.
Only with the advent of DNA sequencing, was the mystery finally resolved, and the butterfly finally assigned to the Riodinidae, where it stands out as being unique among the Metalmarks. Though it's perhaps not surprising that it's South American, as South America is the true home of this Family.
We have but one species in Europe, about 15 to 20 in Asia, about another 15 or so in Australia, and a respectable 100 or so in North America. Go to Central and South America, however, and there's nearly two thousand species to choose from. Peru alone has something like 900 of them. Chances are that Costa Rica has at least 250 species to choose from when Pat steps off the plane and heads for the nearest decent sized patch of rainforest.
In addition, many of the Metalmarks live up to their name, being decorated with iridescent metallic spangles in a range of hues, with blue or red being popular colour choices. Some of the more interesting ones are solid metallic blue with eye spots, and if there are any Ancyluris or Rhetus species present, these are a blast, though I'm more used to hearing of these being found in Amazonian Brazil, Peru and Ecuador.
Meanwhile, since Costa Rica has come up as a topic, look out for the native Orthoptera of that locality ... I guarantee you'll use up at least half a gigabyte of camera storage on them when you discover how utterly bizarre some of them are ... :)
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Orthoptera and coleoptera are probably my two favourite groups of insects. I have 5 'wants' when I go to Costa Rica (flying out tomorrow), only one of which is a bird, the lovely elegant euphonia. I've seen a female before but not a male. The others are a mantis (any mantis, since we don't have them in the UK), a tortoise beetle (which I have a thing about), a harlequin longhorn beetle and a peanut-headed bug. I reckon I'll be lucky if I manage to get two of those.
On the subject of weird orthoptera, here's one that I saw in Ecuador. At first I thought it was a large stick insect until I realized its head was all wrong. It's actually a stick grasshopper. The other photo is of a tortoise beetle, only the second one I've ever seen. Both insects were photographed at the wonderful Sacha Lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon basin.
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The tortoise beetle looks like it's been dipped in gold!!! :o :o :o
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The tortoise beetle looks like it's been dipped in gold!!! :o :o :o
You'll find that a considerable number of beetle species across the planet exhibit striking metallic iridescence. The fun part being that Australia has some especially dramatic looking examples, and some from WA can be viewed here (https://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/beetles#:~:text=Jewel%20beetles%20belong%20to%20the,genera%20Temognatha%2C%20Castiarina%20and%20Melobasis.).
As well as the Family Buprestidae, aptly known as Jewel Beetles, iridescent species can be found in the Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles, including several of the Tortoise Beetles, which in some cases combine iridescence with transparent parts of the exoskeleton) and the Scarabeidae (Scarab Beetles). In the latter Family, some species are wonderfully metallic looking - Chrysina resplendens from Costa Rica looks as if it was fashioned as a piece of jewellery from a gold ingot!
The iridescence observed in these beetles arises from constructive interference of different wavelengths of light, as they are refracted and reflected in nanostructures in the exoskeleton. The mechanism is similar to that allowing Morpho butterflies to exhibit startling blue iridescence, which in some species is visible over a kilometre away across forest clearings.
I'm reminded at this juncture of a chemist who quipped "all that glisters may not be gold, but at least it contains free electrons" (referring to the behaviour of electrons in metals), only to be dumbfounded when presented with a specimen of Chrysina resplendens ... :D
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Costa Rica was a massive disappointment in terms of insects but I saw a couple of good ones, including this lovely leaf-footed bug (anisoscelis alipes). Leaf-footed bugs are common but this is the prettiest one I've seen.
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I actually saw the silver scarab beetle in Costa Rica, Calilasseia. I believe it's chrysina chrysargyrea although I'm happy to be corrected. One had been found at Rancho Naturalista and the owner considered it such an unusual find that she kept it for us to see when we arrived the following day. It was actually a pure silver in colour but the surrounding vegetation reflecting in its back makes it look a different colour so doesn't do it justice. It was released unharmed after I'd photographed it.
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I've been meaning to post this for some time, but keep being distracted. I shall now remedy that deficit, and by doing so, introduce everyone to a once in a lifetime moment!
Preamble: male Orange Tip butterfies are ceaselessly active in the sunshine. They'll patrol a section of greenspace for literally hours on end, looking for a female to mate with, occasionally pausing for a very short time at a flower to tank up on nectar before resuming what I refer to as their "long range bombing missions" :)
As a consequence, finding a male Orange Tip resting is largely a matter of luck.
So, cue April 26th, 2023. I spot a male Orange Tip on the wing as I'm returning home from some shopping, flitting about the greenery adjacent to the cycle track I use for commuting. Then, to my surprise, it settled on a dandelion clock.
At that same moment, a cloud crossed in front of the Sun, and as a consequence, the male Orange Tip reamined still for, wait for it, thirteen mnutes!
I dropped the bicycle, took the camera out of the bag, and started shooting. The photos I'm posting are the end result. Wait until you see what happened as I post these photos!
First, the specimen let me zoom in extra close to it, so I managed the extreme head close-ups you see below. But there's more ... watch this space ...
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And now comes the special part ... yes, I achieved a once in a lifetime moment, when I persuaded the Orange Tip to pose on my hand for photos ... !!!
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Fantastic pictures Calilasseia. So pleased you shared them with us :)
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wonderful photographs
i am sure it made your day
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Amazing. How did you coax it on to your hand.
Most exciting!
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More butterfly photos!
This time from an expedition to a location called Flaxmoss, near Hatchmere in rural Cheshire (visited 2023/05/17). This is a peat bog with lots of Bilberry growing therein, which is the larval foodplant for the Green Hairstreak butterfly. I visit the site with a colleage on a regular annual basis (along with another site near Nunsmere, that also hosts this species).
Usually, we have to spend an hour or so tramping around the peat bog in our wellies until a specimen shows up, then hope that it remains still long enough for us to take photos. This year, we were extra lucky. A specimen appeared within about 30 seconds of our arrival, and posed for the camera for eight minutes!
Here's the photos of that specimen (part 1):
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And now here's Part 2:
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Also spotted at the same location was this Large Red Damselfly:
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And, some more shots of the same specimen of Large Red Damselfly:
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Don't know what this is but a friend just posted it on FB...
(https://scontent-syd2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/356620956_792523432593614_1512166005786576906_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=08amG38qV8sAX-5swed&_nc_ht=scontent-syd2-1.xx&oh=00_AfAXGp-nsoRXGp-WIEOgmQu9W9VDwbe1ArfHNf5WzB2MuQ&oe=64A4212B)
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There are lots of species of red dragonflies! If you wanted help with a more precise ID (which I wouldn't be able to provide) then its location would probably need to be known.
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Northern area of Western Australia is where my friend has been...
A stunning 18 day walk through the remote North and South Carr Boyd range in WA
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Here's a downloadable guide to Australian dragonflies (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://entomologia.net/L_Odonata/Odonata_DRAGONFLIES%2520OF%2520AUSTRALIA_THE%2520COMPLETE%2520FIELD%2520GUIDE%2520TO,.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwip4cjWwf7_AhXHUaQEHYX6Au0QFnoECDoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3Jmtox1o1n7OEdQ6FEtxTv).
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UPDATE: if you download that guide, and go to page 252, you'll find three species of red dragonfly that are found in that part of Western Australia (pp 252-255). Can't see your photo so I can't match it myself.
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Thanks Cal... ;D ;D ;D