Category Archives: Bees & Bugs

Bees & Bugs

Native Drone Fly

As promised, here is a speckled-eyed Native Drone Fly. It makes a droning noise like a bee. It’s a type of hoverfly and I don’t recall photographing this one before now.

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Eristalinus punctulatus: Native Drone Fly

The pretty star-shaped flowers bloom on a succulent in my yard.

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The wing veining is beautiful.

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We have a Native Golden Drone Fly – with golden stripes instead of the grey.

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Those huge eyes are not particularly attractive!  Apparently some drone flies have striped eyes, instead of speckles.

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Images taken with the Nikon D3000, in guide mode.

Thanks for looking. Have a good day.  🙂

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Bees & Bugs, Flowers

Sunny insects

I breathed a big sigh of relief this morning when I got my Nikon D3000 to work in the Guide Mode after I selected single release for the shutter.

Obviously I have done something to the settings which will not reset with the reset button. It might have something to do with white balance as the EXIF data on the photos I took today reported it was doing something unexpected.

You may recall that my troubles began when I began my adventurous experimenting with manual settings.

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Anyway, I had a bit of a snap-happy time and then had a hard time choosing what to share. I settled on these as they reflect my mood – sunny, with fuzzy edges.

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These lovely flowers are borne on a tree in my neighbour’s yard. I love the play of light and shadow on the insect and the little flowers.

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I cropped the bee from a larger image and it’s heavily sharpened using GIMP. I’m including the featured image again – I love the tendril/leaf thing at the lower edge.

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Tomorrow, I’ll show you a speckled-eyed drone hoverfly.

Thanks for looking. Do have a good week!  🙂

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Bees & Bugs

Bees & Apple Blossom

The apple blossoms have been short-lived this season for we have had wind and rain and the odd bit of hail amid the sunny days. My obsession with photographing bees is waning a little. I keep thinking my time can be better spent doing other things. You must be sick of bee pictures, by now!

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Nikon D3000, on auto. A few weeks ago. The Nikon is still not working, and I’m hoping it is a stuck shutter button and not its little motor. I found a tutorial on freeing the button. In the meantime I will have some fun with the phone camera.

Do have a great day. 🙂

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