Backyard Arthropods

I still photograph nearly every day; the part I find myself not being able to do is write about those photographs.  That's life.  Weston is now 7; Brody is 5, and Megan and I are expecting another member of the family in mid-October.  The boys are excited about their new sister.  Yes!  That's correct- a girl Arbour.  My grandmother, 94 years old, had two sons.  Those two sons had five sons.  And those five sons to date have had three sons.  This is the first girl!

Here are a few of the backyard arthropods I photographed this evening.

-Tom

Brody is my Bug Kid

Look what we found yesterday- all by rock flipping and looking closely at our natural garden areas, right here in Worthington Ohio, within the Metro-Columbus area outerbelt.

He has no problem holding things.  Not at all.

-Tom

Banded Garden Spider, Argiope trifasciata

Delaware Wildlife Area, August 27, 2010

-Tom

Bad Day for Pondhawk, Good Day for Spider

Taken on my lunch break this past week with the Canon D10- Delaware Wildlife Area, Ashley, Ohio.

Morning and Afternoon

Orchard Orbweaver,  Leucauge venusta

I'm getting in a groove on the weekend for insect and macro photography- early morning I head to the backyard to photograph tiny creatures like this Orchard Orbweaver, a type of spider that I've seen often but hadn't yet photographed.  Early morning is a great time to get this type of shot since it is usually very calm at dawn.  Any little bit of wind causes the web to move, making it extremely difficult to focus and expose without image blur.

Possible Swamp Darner Epiaeschna heros

Now, fast forward to the afternoon. We've done our family outing in the morning (Saturday it was to the zoo, yesterday we lounged at the Alum Creek Beach, today it'll be the Worthington Memorial Day Parade). We've had lunch- Weston takes a nap, and I'm out the door to photograph insects again, but this time, I'm headed to the Olentangy River. Sunny, hot afternoon days are typically the worst times for photography, unless you're photographing dragonflies. That's the perfect time to get them in flight.

I believe this dragon maybe a swamp darner, but I was surprised to see this species on a river. I've only seen them deep in forested swamps, but you just never know what you might find.  I'm still not closing the door that it might be another species.

This week I'm headed out west.  And when I say West, I don't mean Brookville, Ohio.  I mean Yellowstone National Park West.  I'll be visiting my good buddy Bryan in Livingston, Montana.  From there, we'll be headed for a three night camping adventure in the park, with the intent on photographing Spring- the baby animals, the migrating birds, a little snow, and who knows what else.  I'll be incommunicado from Tuesday evening through the next Monday- so this week I'll have a lineup of images from yesterday's trip to the Olentangy.

Tom

Caltha palustris & Predator

A marsh marigold flower frequented by someone looking for a meal-  In our backyard on a plant I recently purchased from Scioto Gardens. 

Tom

Crab Spider, Fleabane

Continuing with the best of the backyard bugs from 2009, here is a shot captured on August 24. Any thoughts re: the name of this creature are greatly appreciated.

Tom

Creatures of the Night

I know that you're probably sick of me writing about it, but since we move to our new house about a year ago, I've had to look harder for interesting photographic subjects close to home. But really, the subjects are endless. One of my favorite places to photograph biological diversity is the lamppost that sits in our front yard, and one of our lights in the backyard. Take a look at what I photographed this past Saturday evening, and this selection doesn't even include the moths. I don't know the names of these creatures, scientific or common, and I'm plenty OK with that. I would like to learn them in time- now I'm just trying to observe them and learn about them, without having the trouble of learning names. Once I really learn each creature, the name should be easy. That being said, I wouldn't mind input if you recognize one of these buggers.










Tom

The Bugs of Crawford County

A wonderful time photographing The Bridges of Madison County yesterday. Oh wait, I mean the Bugs of Crawford County. Woops.


First, the beetles:



This yellow and black one may be a bug, on second look? What do you think?

Sorry for scaring the crap out of you, little lady beetle.

The Bugs:

The Damsels:
I'll give you ten points if you can name any one of these species.




And finally, this gigantic fishing spider. It wasn't eating the slug, but we did watch it eat several smaller spiders that dared to walk near it. Lightning fast, what an amazing creature.


Again, we had a great time yesterday doing a bioblitz for Crawford County along the upper portions of the Sandusky River. This river is a hidden gem of northern central Ohio.

Tom

Janet and the Jumping Spider

Janet is brave. As she says in this video, "I love spiders". Visit Midwestern Native Plants for more of her adventures. This little guy, or big guy, is from Cave Lake YMCA camp, which graciously hosted our Ohio Heritage Naturalist group this past saturday. I've seen and photographed this type of spider before, but I never knew that you could hold them. They have green eyes- you might just be able to get a glimpse of them when I zoom in a bit. As far as the movie goes, I made it on the old Mac G4 that DrJaymez hooked me up with. iMovie is quite fun. Any other nature bloggers using Macs?

Tom

Featured comment from Janet herself:

"Oops, I forgot to tell you. That is the Bold jumping Spider, Phidippus audax. The chelicerae are what is green, instead of the eyes. It can be distinguished from the Regal Jumping Spider, Phidippus regius by the flat black spots on its abdomen around the three white one. It is hard to see unless in the right light, but it showed up in my pics."

Evening Webs

Well, one work week in the books, almost. It has been a crazy week and it didn't end at all how I was expecting it to. Some of my facebook and or twitter friends may have caught that I was planning to join NEON and Cleveland Museum of Natural History folks at a swamp in Trumbull County. On my way up I-71 in the work vehicle, my brakes didn't respond the first time I tried to stop. Fortunately, after the second and third pumps, I felt some pressure build up, and I decided I could stop the car if I were to get off the ramp. This I did, and turned around, back to Columbus. I called our famous named fix-it shop, it was magically picked up by them, repaired, and returned later that afternoon. The service manager told me over the phone that the rear brake "just fell apart in their hands" when they took the wheel off. New rear brakes, new front brakes too. Nice. Very nice.

So that was my Thursday, expecting to survey a beautiful wetland, but stuck in the office. What could be worse? How about getting sick. I started getting a sore throat last night, and it was worse this morning, so I stayed home to spare my office the wrath of yet more illness. I slept most of the day.

This evening I dared to brave the sunny 70 degree temperatures by stepping out onto our deck. Our tall grass, the last to be mowed in the neighborhood, shimmered in the sun. What seemed like a billion cobweb strands glistened. Still images didn't capture the slow waving movements, so I got out the video camera. Isn't this cool? Insects abounded in the back yard too, flying about it circular motions all across the neighborhood. Our backyard has awakened from its winter slumber, now if I can just kick this crud, I'm set. I'm sure bats will be flying, maybe I can stay awake a few more hours.

Like animals? Visit Camera Critters.

Tom

Kelleys Island Collective Naturalizing

Rico G. and I are back from our last botanizing trip to Kelleys Island State Park. A few pics from the island. If you'd like to offer an interpretation, please pick a number and go at it. There are some things that we are going to need help with here, especially those two strange cans. These things are all over the island, and the strangest thing is that they don't have any easy way of being opened, and many of them appear to never have been opened. What are these things?

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This weekend, I'm participating for the first time in the "Camera Critters" meme. Welcome new readers.

Tom