Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: bee fly

(+10 insets!) (please view large) :D I woke up to a very wet day but happily it wasn't raining when I went out on my walk. It's such fun to be outside in the springtime because the birds are so busy! It seems like every tree is a-twitter with birdies, and though I cannot see any nests, I'm sure they are there, hidden in the branches. I was delighted to discover exactly where a pair of nuthatches have theirs--it's in a hollowed spot of trunk near the top of an oak tree just off the road. I saw them leave as a pair and could see where they came from! What fun! By the way, if you've been keeping up with my bird sightings at the feeders, we've got new species showing up! Finally the lovely Lesser Goldfinches have found the feeders and we're seeing groups of up to 6 visiting! Yesterday I saw a mourning dove moving around under the feeders and when I turned away, Steve laughed out loud and said, "Another mourning dove flew in and crash-landed on the first one…RUDE!" :D I'll show these new bird species as insets below my main presentation. Today is SATURDAY SELF CHALLENGE!! YES!! *pumps fist in the air* The theme seems to be made exactly for me: "Close Up In Color". OK, I think I can do that! :D Happily, Wednesday was the first day of spring and I went on a photo safari around our property looking for all of the flowers which were in bloom. I managed to find several few new ones and I got some pictures of saxifrage too. (This is a flower I've mentioned but haven't shown any pictures until now.) It's a fairly plain flower but I'm delighted to say that I got some very nice images to share. I also got a much better picture of a flower I'd photographed in the past called Hairy Bittercress. My main image is a tiny hoverfly (.3"/8.46mm) sitting in a sea of bokeh with just its face in sharp focus. It landed on a stem right next to me as I was photographing a buttercup and wasn't bothered by me at all. This allowed me to take many dozen pictures in various apertures and different angles. In fact, I was the one that left, not him! The thing that sets this little guy apart are those incredible iridescent wings! Aren't they amazing?! This picture is magical to me because the bokeh turned the colors of its wings into fairy dust! You will find two more angles of this hoverfly as insets but I'm also presenting most of the subjects I photographed on the first day of spring. What fun it was to process them all. It was extremely satisfying to add some better pictures of species I've photographed before. I am not much of a fan of either Saxifrage or Hairy Bittercress but I actually got some attractive images of them--not easy to do, let me tell you! :) Anyway, I hope you enjoy the show! (I actually had to trim down the number of pictures…far too many so I'll post another set in a few days along with pictures of new flowers I've found since!) :) Pam, it was easy to know what to search for and I went in figuring there would be plenty of choices--hoverflies are pretty brave little guys and make fantastic subjects because they often just sit there, asking, "Do I look more beautiful from the left, or perhaps from the right? Oh? You'd like an image of me hovering? Why of course, here you go!" :D I picked your beautiful Hoverfly on Bradford Pear Blossom image… what a stunner. The blossoms are right out of Cinderella and that hoverfly is the perfect model! :) I hope you have had a good day my dear!! *BIG HUGS TO YOU*!!!! Explored on 3/24/19, highest placement, #1.

4 more pictures in notes above! Today I was working on getting pictures together for Bokeh Thursday, but my favorite pick happens to be another caterpillar, and well, I don't want you guys to get sick of them, so I went out to look for those pink flowers again! HAH! Something always comes between me and the little pink flowers!! First it was the wind. It's one of those crazy changing-of-season days where the sun's out and it starts to rain. There was a booming thunder and lightning storm earlier, with downpours and hail, and then it all passed by and was sunny again! Crazy! However, it was very gusty, so when I finally found some of the pink flowers, they were waving around every which way, and as I bent down to take pictures, I realized I would be wasting my time so I went to find some sort of cover from the wind and hoped I might find some flowers there. When I got to a place behind a burn pile, there were no flowers but I didn't care at that point. I noticed a tiny something on a dried Tarweed flower husk and looking closer, I was excited to see that it was a fuzzy Bee Fly! It had its proboscis extended and at first glance I thought it was a huge mosquito. However, they aren't even related, and I'm glad...I have no interest in taking pictures of those nasty blood-suckers! The long proboscis you see is used to probe flowers for nectar, not to puncture flesh for blood! ICK! This fly was about 1/4" long and was very docile. At one point I accidentally bumped into the dried plant and it waved all over the place. Amazingly, the fly just hung on and then began grooming itself!! I have a picture of that to share too! :) I was so amazed when I looked at these pictures on my computer--you would never know it was so windy! This is one of the very best fly pictures I've taken so far! :D Edward Osborne "E. O." Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading authority. Wikipedia: E.O. Wilson Explored on September 6, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#36).

About a month ago, I was very excited to find this beautiful flower, and while taking pictures, I got a very busy visitor! I'm a huge fan of Bee Flies with their huge bodies and perfect ability to hover in midair! :) (By the way, I won't be posting my String Flower pictures for a while...it's probably going to be a long way past #100!!) The Large Bee Fly is a bee mimic. Females flick eggs towards the entrance of underground bee and wasp nests and the hatching larvae enter the nests and eat the grubs! They are found in most parts of Europe, North America and some parts of Asia. If you would like to know more about these awesome flies, Wiki has a good source of information here: Wiki: Greater Bee Fly (Bombylius major)