What's worse than bugs?? NO bugs, in my humble opinion! What's happening where YOU live this summer? Here in sunny Southern Ontario , I am worried sick as I am seeing VERY few bugs this year. Almost no honeybees or bumblebees. Precious few wasps or hornets . Maybe three or four big butterflies- one Monarch, a couple of Tiger Swallowtails and a Mourning Clock or two in the early spring. There WERE quite a few little Hairstreaks :-) And I think I have seen about three Damselflies and one Dragonfly. What's going on, folks? What has happened? Is it the cold winter we had last year? Is it something in the air? I do NOT like this!!! I have only seen about three Cabbage White butterflies, for heaven's sake!! I call that NO cabbage butterflies! What' up???
I have my marvellous new camera and a stellar Macro lens- I am getting LOTS of lovely flower closeups and macros. I was so excited to try to capture some cool bugs with my new equipment. But..... :-( VERY few have been around so here are a few of my attempts. I have just not gotten good at BUGSES, coz I can't find enough to practise on.
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| My one and only dragonfly, not well focussed! Shooting from a distance into the setting sun is NOT recommended! |
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| THE only Cabbage White- away too quick for me . I barely caught him(her?) |
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| A bug who shall remain nameless on a coneflower petal. |
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| This pair is overexposed. I am illustrating a point! |
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| One of VERY few honeybees I have seen |
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| Another little fellow I cannot ID- on a Matricaria bloom |
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| Something bee-ish! |
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| NO shortage of spiders |
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| Same chap- or lady! |
You see how bad these are. Practice is a WONDERFUL thing. An old maths teacher of mine used to say, "practice saves milking time!"
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| This guy is a little better. There is no shortage of these leggetty beasties either this summer. They are ubiquitous. |
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| Besma Quercivoraria- he's a caterpillar and he is VERY cool! |
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| A lovely little Hairstreak - minus his tails- on a Rudbeckia |
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| And a little Skipper also enjoying the Rudbeckia |
Well, there you have it folks! Not many bugs and not very wonderful pictures. I DO hope to get better with practice! I just need the CHANCE to practice! When I grow up, I want to be Frank Jacobs- a Belgian photographer ( check him out on Flickr- especially his Dragonflies and Damselflies!!) His work is amazing!
What I am REALLY saying is BRING BACK OUR BUGSES! We NEED them! I am going to have to hand pollinate some flowers in our garden this year. It is VERY scary! Tomorrow, I shall post this to the
needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com despite there being not a single stitch of needlework in this post. Hope you enjoy everyone's posts. I hope I can make a link again! Anyone else having trouble??
The dragonfly is wonderful and I don't care about the focus. And that wonderful stick caterpillar. I've never seen anything like it! Are they common?
ReplyDeleteI've seen insects here, but the numbers have been odd. I've seen more butterflies than the last few years, but fewer wasps.
I went to a stately home at the weekend and had a wander around the grounds and saw loads of bumble bees, but very few honey bees. It's odd, and I agree it's worrying.
I don't worry too much, they all will come back. We had such a hot June, July, August up to now. Who of those lovely bugs would fly around in this heat. We had wasps !!! many, many, so we had to take care not to swallow any.
ReplyDeleteHmm...we've had 'em all out here: mosquitoes, cabbage whites (or at least, what looks like them from a distance), dragon flies, bees of all shapes and sizes (I have ornamental fruit trees and they hummed through half of May and most of June), other butterflies (colourful)...even a few wasps (they show up when one is grilling steaks or chops...), what I've always called "shad flies" and some moths (when the lights are on at night)...Maybe all of yours came holidaying out West!
ReplyDeleteHi - I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices the drop in insects...and bats too! Yes I think there are a lot of things going on that we can't necessarily see and if you aren't a gardener, then I doubt anybody would notice the lack of little creatures.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of yellow swallowtails but haven't seen the first Monarch this year. Only saw 3 last year. They are in trouble too.
Thanks for the pretty pictures!