Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
😀 Sorry, couldn’t resist. Taken a couple weeks ago after what had been a pretty cruddy photo excursion. I came home and was starting my yardwork when I spotted this guy on the patio. Given my poor results earlier, I spent a ridiculous amount of time photographing this ‘leaf bug’ but it was a willing subject and did not run away from me (much).
These little guys have really taken to liking our backyard and we don’t mind given that they do a nice job controlling nuisance insects. This past weekend I tried to catch some pics of them in flight but that saw limited (i.e. poor) success. One did stop for a while and give me some nice poses as it held on to a yucca plant stalk. The details that you find when looking at these guys closeup is just amazing to me.
With all the rain we have been having here along the Colorado Front Range, everything is growing like gangbusters, including the flowers in my wife’s National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat garden.
Thursday afternoon I mounted up my macro lens and headed back there to get some captures of the blooms and bugs. This big guy was hard at work and commanded most of my attention as he really was cool looking. I loved this shot which shows all the pollen that stuck to him during his stops.
Going back to July for this pic I haven’t shared previously. Visits to high altitude always include trying to get pictures of these miniature residents. They are so cute and highly entertaining.
This little one stopped and posed briefly, taking a break from gathering for the winter. It wasn’t until I got home and processed the pictures that I noticed a second, far smaller creature in the image – a ladybug – on the grass right in front of the pika. Kind of fun!
Despite the heat here in the Denver area, we have still been spending a lot of late afternoons and evenings hanging out in our little backyard oasis. It is always fun to see what comes to visit and of course I take my camera with me. The other day, this cute, orange dragonfly stopped by and hung out for a bit, allowing me to get some nice captures. I love how detailed the face and legs came out.
Having had a couple highly successful, extended photo trips in recent weeks, I stuck close to home this past weekend. In fact, I stuck within a hundred feet or so on Sunday. Certainly that gave me time to get caught up on yardwork and mundane tasks but I did whip out the camera a bit.
While sitting on the back patio enjoying coffee in the cool morning air with my bride, these two insects caught my attention.
We routinely see dragonflies but it isn’t often they land long enough for me to get a picture. This one was quite pretty and colorful – and seemed to be sporting a smile. Then, a rather large moth made an appearance. It had some cool orange coloring when flying but I was never able to get pics that showed much of that. However, I did get some nice closeups, including some with it extending its proboscis (tongue).
I have bragged before about the beautiful job my wife did over a period of three years turning much of our backyard into an oasis for us as well as birds and insects.
After being out of town for much of a week, I desperately needed to catch up on yardwork yesterday so I skipped my usual photo excursion. After much of the work was done though, I broke out the camera and spent some time in the yard photographing some of the cool visitors.
Among them, a cabbage white butterfly, a young broad-tailed hummingbird, a European paper wasp and an orange-belted bumblebee. It was late morning by the time I took these and the light was kind of harsh but fun stuff to see no matter the time of day.
Much of the work was done thanks to Thornton Water Conservation and is a certified National Wildlife Federation Wildlife Habitat.
This will probably illicit some, “Oh, gross!” type comments but it is kind of neat. I spotted these two (look close) spiders on the side of our house recently.
Initially they were separate and I was photographing the bigger of the two. Suddenly, the big one lept at the second and, well, it was clear its intentions were less than kind.
Yeah, definitely a bit of ick-factor to the shots but also kind of cool. 😉
So here is your chance to laugh at me.
This cool dude was hanging out on one of our patio chairs just a bit ago. I ran inside, grabbed my camera, mounted my macro lens and came out and started snapping pics. I was squatting down with the end of my lens hood was only five or six inches from the spider and I don’t think it liked that because it jumped right down the hood!
This is the image I got just as it leaped into the air. That startled me as I was worried the dang thing had landed on me, and I fell backwards, right onto my butt.
My wife, worried I would panic, yells, “Don’t throw that camera!” LOL! I didn’t throw it, thankfully, and gently got it out but, boy, it sure did startle me. 😀
This is apparently an Apache jumping spider – and clearly it can jump. Kind of a cool looking dude.
Check out this little dude! I spotted him in my backyard and had to grab a pic of it. You can tell by its size in relation to the grass just how small it is. I would say it was at most a half inch long. Its bright green color was really kind of cool and certainly helped it to blend in with the grass.
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