Lmst

#BugOfTheDay

Bonus #BugOfTheDay before I go out cycling.

A German scorpionfly (Panorpa germanica). This one is a female, with a rather small tail – the male of the species has a very scary looking appendage down there 🙀

And both have a huge schnozzle upfront, not seen from this angle 🤥

Quite the garden monster 😈

#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A close-up picture of an insect hanging on the edge of a white flower. The spread wings are clear yellow with black patches and the body is black with yellow stripes. The end of the abdomen is a reddish-brown, with two small cerci. The head is a similar red-brown and the insect has long antennae.

Our garden is on a steep slope & I take most of my pictures standing on steps.

That makes it awkward to use a tripod when taking macro shots.

In turn, that means I use fast speeds & an open aperture , making it hard to focus accurately & to get a nice depth of field.

That said, this image of a charmingly-named marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus) has some redeeming qualities 🤷‍♂️

Plus, I'm reflected in its thorax 😉

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#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A small hoverfly sitting on a green leaf, photographed from directly above. It's glassy wings are folded over its yellow and black abdomen, with individual lenses visible in its large red compound eyes. Much of the image below the top of the hoverfly is out of focus.

Spotted this honey bee taking a brief rest this afternoon – when the Sun came out from behind the clouds, it flew off & back to work 🐝

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#BugOfTheDay 🪰
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#InsectsOfMastodon 🪳
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A close-up side-on picture of a honey bee sitting on a green leaf. The bee is very hairy, with various little bits of pollen stuck to it. It is mostly yellow-orange with black bands, black legs, and black compound eyes.

And as the garden wasn't entirely free of insects, here's a bonus #BugOfTheDay.

My best guess is that it's a privet leafhopper (Fieberiella florii), but I'm open to corrections.

I only grabbed a quick picture before it, umm, hopped away, & the depth of field isn't great.

But it captures the lovely orange, white, & black striped compound eye nicely, along with texture around the head, so it's worth posting 🤷‍♂️

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#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
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A close-up picture of a small greenish bug with orange stripes sitting on some green leaves. It has compound eyes which are orange with horizontal white and black stripes. The background is also green and out-of-focus.

A bit of a mystery for today's #BugOfTheDay 🤨

I'd given up on finding many insects in the garden today, as it was fairly cold. So I decided to take a picture of this pretty peach-leaved bellflower (Campanula persicifolia), only to discover a rather lethargic bee cosied up inside 🐝

I suspect that it's a mining bee of the Andrena genus, but can anyone identify it more specifically? 🧐

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#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A small black bee with sparse rufous hairs sitting at the base of the three-pronged white stamen inside a lilac-coloured flower. The background is green and out-of-focus.

This little one has a big future 🦗

A common dark bush cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) in its small nymph stage, around 5mm long – it'll shed its skin a few more times in coming weeks & become a 15-20mm adult.

From other pictures, it's a male – it has two small cerci at the end of its abdomen, not the single large ovipositor of a female.

Aka the Gewöhnliche or Gemeine Strauchschrecke in German.

#Insects 🪰
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#BugOfTheDay 🐝
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#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A close-up picture of a small cricket nestled in some out of focus greenery. The cricket has a light beige back with darker brown strips down its flanks, with orange brown legs. It has two large antennae, one in focus, the other not.

Never too late for #BugOfTheDay – I caught this Dolycoris baccarum in some dark undergrowth after dusk this evening, so the depth of focus isn't great, but when needs must 🤷‍♂️

Also known as a sloe bug or hairy shieldbug in English or a Beerenwanze in German, these are common & widespread across most of Europe & Central Asia 🌍🌏

#Insects 🪰
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A small shieldbug sitting on some greenery. The bug has several reddish sections, with a yellow-green central shield on its back. There is a black and white frilled section just visible and the bug is very textured with small black dots.

And to keep the buggy goodness going, here's another of those funky little woolly bee flies (Systoechus ctenopterus), with their enormous schnozzles.

As seen in the garden this evening, just before the sun set over the hills – the fly was calmly collecting the last warmth after a busy day's work 🌞

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A side-on, close-up view of a small, fuzzy, golden-brown fly with long legs and a very long black proboscis sitting on a green plant.

Having been away from the garden for a few days, I have some catching up to do on photographing its denizens.

I saw a couple of the beautiful large violet carpenter bees wanging around, but wasn't able to get a picture.

But I manage to get one of this diminutive relative, the small blue carpenter bee (Ceratina cyanea), feeding on a chive flower.

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A close-up photo of a small green-blue bee perched on the purple flower of a chive, seen against an out of focus green-white background. Its wings are translucent brown and folded against the body.

A honey bee taking a break on a chive flower this morning.

It wasn't moving much & stayed put for more than five minutes, allowing me to sidle up & get some pictures. This is a merger of two, to increase the depth of focus.

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A close-up picture of a honey bee seen side on, hanging from the side of a purple-white chive flower. The green stem of the chive goes to the lower left, while the background is mostly green and out of focus.

It's a nice sunny evening & Tigger demanded another garden patrol walk.

Which allowed me to capture this rather lovely woolly bee fly in the Bombyliidae family.

I think it's a Systoechus ctenopterus, although there are 121 species in the genus worldwide, so I can't be 100% sure 🤷‍♂️

Plus you get some bonus aphids on the flower stem & something scary on the flower itself – what's that? 🙀

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#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

A close-up photo of a small fly sitting on an unopened purple flower against an out of focus green background. The fly is very hairy, with long legs and a long proboscis, mimicing a bee. There are some green aphids on the flower stem and a scary-looking transparent wee beastie looking over the edge of the flower.

Bonus #BugOfTheDay – a cinnamon bug (Corizus hyoscyami) perched on a metal post in the garden.

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A small red and black beetle seen side-on, hanging on to a dark green metal pole. The background is a lighter foliage green and out of focus.

Need a new camera with faster autofocus 🤪

Actually, I'm quite happy with this accidental shot taken as the bumblebee flew away from the chive flower – just goes to show how busy they are on sunny summer days 🙂

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#BugOfTheDay 🐝
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A purple chive flower is in focus at the bottom of the photo, with a flying bee seen side on at the top, somewhat out of focus as it flies away. The background is green and completely out of focus.

Caught in a sunbeam 🌞

A green-veined white butterfly (Pieris napi) taking a moment's rest in the garden 🌸

Not the sharpest photo, but within a second, it had fluttered away, so it is what it is, & besides, the bokeh is nice 🙂👍

As for the flower, some kind of geranium, I think, but I'm more interested in the insects, to be honest 🤷‍♂️

#Insects 🦋
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A green-ish white butterfly with darker veins on the undersides of its wings sitting on a lilac flower with purple veins. The background is out of focus and there are many roundish circles corresponding to other flowers in sunlight.

I was excited to see my first dragonfly of the year in the garden yesterday, but disappointed when it flew away before I could raise my camera ☹️

So for now, you'll just have to have the latter half, a fly 😬

More specifically, a flesh fly of the Sarcophagidae family, taking a short sunshine break between eating dead things.

Well, ok, to be fair, that's just part of their diet, but ... 🤷‍♂️

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A close-up picture of a black and white striped fly with brick red eyes sitting in the sunshine on a paving slab.

I feel the need to apologise to this little jumping spider 👋😬

The near focus of the macro lens on my phone is so close, immediately after taking this picture, I knocked the lavender & sent the spider tumbling into the bushes 🙀

Fortunately it had attached a safety line & hauled itself back up again 🕷️🕸️🙂👍

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A small dark jumping spider seen side on standing on a green lavender leaf facing downwards. The spider is in shadow but the tops of the leaves are in sunlight.

So, last beetle picture (at least for today :D)...

#PoplarBeetle #LeafBeetle #ChrysomelaPopuli #BeetleLove #BeetleBeauty #ColorfulBeetles #InsectPhotography #BeetleCloseUp #BugOfTheDay #spring #MacroBug #MacroMagic #NatureMacro #TinyWorld #InsectPerfection #NatureInDetail #WildlifeMacro #CloseUpNature #SmallWorldBigBeauty #NatureCaptured #MacroWonder #naturephotography

#SonyA7C #Sony70300mm #SonyPhotography #SonyAlpha #SonyImages #SonyMacro #SonyTelephoto #AlphaShooter

#edited #luminarneo

*Crop from last picture :)

This is the same bug as in the last photo, but from a different angle.

#PoplarBeetle #LeafBeetle #ChrysomelaPopuli #BeetleLove #BeetleBeauty #ColorfulBeetles #InsectPhotography #BeetleCloseUp #BugOfTheDay #spring #MacroBug #MacroMagic #NatureMacro #TinyWorld #InsectPerfection #NatureInDetail #WildlifeMacro #CloseUpNature #SmallWorldBigBeauty #NatureCaptured #MacroWonder #naturephotography

#SonyA7C #Sony70300mm #SonyPhotography #SonyAlpha #SonyImages #SonyMacro #SonyTelephoto #AlphaShooter

#edited #luminarneo

A red poplar beetle (Chrysomela populi) resting on a thin twig. I took this shot with the Sony A7C and the Sony 70-300mm lens.
The magnification on this lens is impressive!

#PoplarBeetle #LeafBeetle #ChrysomelaPopuli #BeetleLove #BeetleBeauty #ColorfulBeetles #InsectPhotography #BeetleCloseUp #BugOfTheDay #spring #MacroBug #MacroMagic #NatureMacro #TinyWorld #InsectPerfection #NatureInDetail #WildlifeMacro #CloseUpNature #SmallWorldBigBeauty #NatureCaptured #MacroWonder #naturephotography

#SonyA7C #Sony70300mm #SonyPhotography #SonyAlpha #SonyImages #SonyMacro #SonyTelephoto #AlphaShooter

#edited #luminarneo

Spotted today acting suspiciously on a fig 🤨

My first thought was “ha, a fig wasp!” & that would have given me the opportunity to tell the barmy & somewhat icky story of their lifecycle inside figs 😬

But no, it seems to be a yellow barklouse (Valenzuela flavidus), apparently innocent of such sordid tales, rather feeding on the microflora found on trees & shrubs 🤷‍♂️

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