Marmelade Fly on Pink Anemone

July 28, 2009 in Photo | No comments

As I said a few days ago, the anemones are currently popping up like crazy. It seems they are not the only ones, we’ve also got a huge number of mamelade flies:

Two marmelade flies collecting pollen and nectar from an anemone flower.

Marmelade Flies on an Anemone Flower

As you can tell, a marmelade fly (Episyrphus balteatus) looks a bit like a solitary wasp, but it really is a hoverfly and therefore quite harmless. Harmless to everyone and everything but aphids (plant lice or greenflies), that is, which the larvae (would that be marmelade larvae?) are fond of eating.

For this reason the marmelade flies are quite welcome in my garden and I like to have them come around. In case you are wondering, they do not seem to have the habit of becoming annoying like their house fly cousins.

These two, incidentally, are both males. You can tell this because the eyes touch at the top of the head, which is unique to the males. Isn’t it cool what you can find out if you take an interest in what shows up in your pictures? đŸ˜‰

Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky

July 26, 2009 in Photo | No comments

Here’s a fun shot I took while on my belly in the gras:

Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky.

Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky

I had to resist the temptation to increase the saturation of the blue sky to get a more in-your-face look, which would have meshed well with the super-saturated color of the flower. I prefer this rendition because it conveys the light, sunny feel that goes with that particular sky – if you have ever been to Bavaria in that kind of weather, you will know what a “Bavarian Sky” is and what I am talking about.

L’anĂ©mone primeur est arrivĂ©!

July 26, 2009 in Photo | No comments

The anemones have just begun to bloom. I love these flowers and relish the opportunity to take pictures of them. Here is this year’s first (good) anemone picture:

A pink anemone flower photographed against the light.

Pink Anemone Flower

I like anemones for their delicate beauty which is so visible when you look at the colored veins and spots against the light. Can you see the tiny hairs that line the petals? And the shadows the flower throws on itself in the sunlight?

Have I mentioned that I really love these flowers? No, I do not think you could have guessed. đŸ™‚

Green Lizard

June 30, 2009 in Photo | No comments

The green streak on the brown bark of the tree caught my attention. It turned out to be a wonderfully fluorescent green lizard sitting upside-down on the trunk of the tree:

A bright green lizard on a tree.

Green Lizard

I am not quite sure what the lizard was looking at. Perhaps the person behind the camera was every bit intriguing as the lizard in front of the camera?

Fern Spiral

June 30, 2009 in Photo | No comments

A fern leaf unrolls itself from a tightly wound spiral towards the light as it grows.

A fresh fern leaf spirals up towards the light.

Fern Spiral

Ferns as a group are quite old – the fossil records date back to the early Carboniferous period, so roughly 360 million years ago, have been found. Isn’t it amazing that organisms are so well adapted that the species survives almost 400 million years and shows no sign of weakness?

Even though this long history is certainly not unique to ferns, I always get the feeling that a dinosaur might peek through the leaves at me when I come across a fern … đŸ˜‰

« Older entries § Newer entries »