Monday, June 11, 2007
Flame Skimmer

This is another image that I like as much for the background as the subject itself. Getting a nice picture of something is not as hard if that is all you are concentrating on. Creating a beautiful image is a bit more work. Suddenly that garbage can in the background becomes an issue. :-D

Thursday, June 7, 2007
Pollen Covered

Well she wants you to think she has been working hard. But actually she just got done raiding a bag of Doritos.

The hummers have been elusive this week, but the bees have sure put on a show to make up for it!

Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Evening Bee

My intention was to chase hummingbirds. But they must not have been very hungry tonight. Of course the bees are always good for a few nice shots.

Saturday, June 2, 2007
Armored Bee

Well my description was not quite as scientific as I usually like... "Big Black Bee!" But it's late and I was not able to track her down. I did have fun taking pictures of her though! Her copper colored wings were reflecting the evening sun beautifully! I was trying to get a shot that really hilted the wings and their amazing structure but this ended up being my favorite.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
White Peacock on a Flower

A really little peacock.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Cup of Gold Nectar

Kind of like The Hound when she gets into her food "Face First".

This bee was very cooperative. She spent a lot of time on each blossom. I guess she wanted to make sure she did not miss anything.

This was the only flower on the plant that had the cool "crumpled" look. All of the other flowers were more cup-like. Fitting, since their name in Spanish (Copa de Oro) means "Cup of Gold."

Thursday, May 17, 2007
Daisy Bee

I was up to one of my favorite pastimes last weekend, chasing bees. This one was quite cooperative. She was at a local Nursery so there was plenty of things for her to eat!

Monday, May 7, 2007
Tomatillo Spider

When we were at the Nursery a couple weeks ago we found some great peppers. This Tomatillo looked so cool I just had to grab him too. I figure they'll make some good salsa together too. I just got a great book of salsa recipes for my birthday and I can't wait to try it out!

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Popular Rose

It looks like there's gonna be a fight!

Actually, they got along really well and shared the flower. At one point there was even a third bee.

I have been known to chase bees, but in this case I was drawn to this scene by the same thing they were. There are a lot of beautiful roses out there but the yellow/red variegated varieties are my favorites!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Somebody's Watchin'

This is a closer crop of one of my shots of the dragon from a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry to any Entophobics out there!) I like this shot not only because you can actually make out the hexagonal segments of his eyes. Which is pretty cool, but also because of the shadows of the hairs. There are hairs between his eyes, you cant see them, they are pointing straight at the camera. But you can see the shadows on his eye.

Friday, November 3, 2006
Blue-eyed Darner

We spent the last couple of days in Pismo Beach, it was a nice place to spend a few days.

One of the places we wandered into after lunch was a garden store that had all kinds of interesting plants and things. The most interesting of them was this Dragonfly that buzzed me when I was looking at a fountain (his fountain?) Of course he froze when I found his perch which gave me a great opportunity to get some nice shots of him.

His eyes are extremely beautiful, you can see the hexagonal structure of the segments of his eyes in the shape of the highlight on his left eye.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Basking Monarch

We spent a day in San Luis Obispo last week. It is a fun place to wander around and the weather was great for it. We found this guy while walking the hound by the mission.

Saturday, September 16, 2006
Resting Dragon

This is another one of those subjects you can easily walk by without noticing. I was about to get in the car and he was down near the ground. His wings are not out of focus, they are actually fluttering. I think that's what caught my eye.

Friday, August 18, 2006
Milk-Bee

In case you were wondering what the flower looked like that caught my attention in yesterday's photo. (I know it was just keeping you awake all night! :0) This is about 6" further up. And the bee? Well, she was nice enough to fly in right after I was done finishing up with yesterday's subject!

I actually got quite a few interesting shots of the bee working on these flowers. I picked this one because it shows her wings so nicely.

Thursday, August 17, 2006
Long-horn Caterpillar

The hound and I were wandering down De La Vina Street today. Only a few steps into our walk I noticed a beautiful orange flower growing by the edge of the sidewalk. When I leaned down to examine it I found a pleasant surprise!

Of course when I saw this guy I suspected that my beautiful flower was actually a weed. But that's ok. On one small plant there were two of these large Monarch caterpillars.

Monarchs dine almost exclusively on Milkweed. It gives them a lovely defense against predators. You see since the Milkweed is poisonous (and tastes terrible to almost anything with the apparent exception of Monarch caterpillars) It makes the caterpillars and resulting butterflies poisonous and taste terrible to just about anything that would try to make a snack of them.

As I was sitting on the sidewalk, watching the caterpillar it was amazing how many people went by (looking at me like I was crazy) and missed such an interesting sight. Of course I guess it is only interesting to crazy photographers like me and other fortunate people with child-like curiosity.

Monday, July 31, 2006
Hovering Bee

She's been busy! I am surprised she can still fly with all that pollen on her legs.

Saturday, July 22, 2006
Bee Dazzler

The bees have been wild this year. And, as I have yet to be stung, they are still one of my favorite subjects. Actually, I love photographing flowers and the bees add some life.

Thursday, July 20, 2006
Serendipity

It is really interesting to me to see the motion in this shot. The bee is actually leaning into the turn like a bike rider.

I was framing up the shot of the flower when the bee flew in from the left. She made a beautiful arc into the photo and I hit the shutter release as many times as I could!

Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Red Dragon

I like dragonflies and this guy and his friends were putting on quite a show. They were diving down to the surface of the water and skimming across it (hence the name I guess,) I got a few action shots but this is my favorite!

While I was trying to identify this guy I found many sites incorrectly identifying damsel flies as dragonflies. The way you tell the difference is by how they hold their wings when they are resting. This is a dragonfly, wings perpendicular to the body. A damselfly holds it's wings back against it's body.

Monday, July 10, 2006
Glowing Bee

Today, when we took The Hound for her afternoon walk we bumped into one of our neighbors. She was working in her garden like she does almost every day. Part of her garden was particularly attractive to the bees, so I took the opportunity to get a few bee portraits.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Hoverfly

He looks like a bee, he drinks nectar like a bee, but apparently he is a fly. And such a shiny one!

Monday, May 8, 2006
Monarch Chrysalis

We went for another walk today. Along the way we stopped by our neighbor's yard to check on the caterpillar from our Saturday walk, and this is what we found! I thought he looked like he was trying to get comfortable there.

Sunday, April 30, 2006
Nun Bee

The sun came out today!!! Not something that would normally be such a surprise in California, but this year you have to take it one day at a time.

In honor of our beautiful sunny day we decided to take a bit of a rose garden tour. We went to the Mission rose garden and the rose garden at Fess Parker's Resort on Cabrillo.

This was one of my favorite roses of the day. I was actually taking pictures of it before the bee flew into the picture. She was quite the ham! She hovered all around in front of the rose for me.

Sunday, April 16, 2006
Honey Bee Hovering

This was actually from a Hound walk from a couple of weeks ago. I try not to chase too many bees while she is with me, but this guy was really showing off right beside the sidewalk.