Day 279 : creepy spider

This is not just a spider but a monster of spiders and it’s built a fairly substantial web in a few garden from my front door. I don't generally have a problem with spiders unless they fly or are poisonous. Oh or if they’re somehow in my hair, hence the aversion to flying spiders, beetles and a myriad of other annoying flying insects. I will concede that daddy-long-legs are harmless, but the flying bit will always spook me. Spiders get rid of flies which is an excellent thing in my book.

I was going to say there are no poisonous spiders in Britain but thought I'd do a quick google check of that fact first, and horror, the news is all full of the “faux widow” complete with a skull on its back. Eeeek! I thought I'd left behind venomous arachnids after boarding my flight back from Australia a couple of times. Will be checking everywhere for signs of skull bedecked spiders now, shudder!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Day 197 : where's the fuzz?

I'm still stalking bees, they do pose an interesting challenge. They don't linger long on the particular chosen flower and there's the added jeopardy they might sting. This is a honey bee, I prefer bumble bees because I like their stripy, fluffy coats. My favourite little bedtime rhyme when I was little was “Bertie the bee had a musical buzz and a bright yellow jacket of velvety fuzz...” My love of bees has remained. I grabbed a few shots of bumble bees today but they were deep inside a flower so I only got an enticing shot of a velvety bottom but I wanted a more equivocal bee picture. So a honey bee it would have to be!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Day 174 : b-day

Curiously less than an hour ago I was enjoying AL’s glorious celebratory birthday barbecue feast alongside the pool in the rose garden, and had been discussing macro photography with KR. We’d been pondering the challenge of capturing a bee shot as they don't generally linger long and there's the jeopardy of getting stung if you get too close.

Not so long afterwards I was meandering my way home, feeling the urge to walk off some of the Lacey’s Pieces, armed with my camera and I stumbled across some bees.

This bush, smothered in tiny pink flowers was attracting a small troupe of busy bees, loitering briefly on each flower before buzzing to the next. With my close-up filters attached, I have to get extraordinary close and trying to focus on these frenetic bees was a real challenge. As soon as I think I've got a good, sharp shot I click and the image revealed is either entirely devoid of bee or has a fuzzy yellow and black stripy blur to one side. But I keep trying, narrowly avoiding being very stung, channeling Winnie the Pooh’s advice regarding interacting with bees. Though he was trying to steal their honey and I just wanted to capture their image for posterity. Though I'm not entirely positive bees can be distracted, Pooh suggested humming a song about being a cloud but I opt to try not to look like a flower (though to be fair, I'm wearing a dress covered in large B&W photographs of flowers topped off with another huge grey flower) so possibly failing on that point.

However, I just about managed to get my bee shot and remain blissfully unstung, happy days!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Day 166 : Things to make you go urghhh!

When I asked myself early on in my self-challenged 365 project why would I, or possibly anyone take a photograph, I pondered "Would it be to capture a moment, a memory and essence? A scene of beauty to enable a revisit albeit virtually or an aide memoir? Or perhaps an incongruous or funny event that might be shared on Facebook later? Documenting an auspicious moment, perhaps for the family album or to share with the world your on-the-spot reportage of the momentous, the challenging, the downright depressing?" I’m fairly sure I had no intention of photographing the antithesis of beauty (well, in my mind) as a dying upturned stag beetle.

I spotted the specimen as I stepped off the train, I really didn't want to get too close. The creepy little legs were flailing around and I had a fear it might suddenly flip itself over and jump at me. Okay they're endangered and their colonies in Richmond Park were instrumental in the designation of a National Nature Reserve but they still freak me out. According to the Richmond Park website "The Stag Beetle is a gentle giant of the insect world. Despite a reputation for summoning thunder and lightning, the male Stag Beetle is entirely harmless. They may look scary to some people but their large jaws are only used to wrestle with other males and their bite is too weak to hurt you." Hmmm they can't hurt you, well I can vouch for the fact that when one of these shiny armoured-plated huge things fly through your open window waving its nasty red-tinged pincers and makes a beeline straight for your face, you're in grave danger of a sudden heart attack!

What I found curious that after spotting this marooned creature at Richmond Station I noticed another a little later also on its back at the end of my road. Two in one night, does that constitute a plague?

 

Posted with Blogsy

Day 154 : ladybird, ladybird fly away home

We have a little oasis round the back of our new building. It has a few benches, a fountain and a curious telly-tubby mound in the middle of it. The hillock thing is very odd, it seems too sloping to sit on, perhaps you could shimmy up the steep sides and sit cross-legged on the top. Needless to say the brief time we've been here I haven't seen anyone find some use for it. We sit on the more traditional benches to eat our sandwiches and a ladybird is sat by us.

When I little, we believed that ladybirds with these markings were poisonous, that only the ones with three spots on each wing were safe to be around. Now I know that it’s just a different species. But I think I still prefer the ones with less spots though, just in case!

 

Posted with Blogsy