Thursday, July 16, 2015

Blossoms and Bugs

It's hard for me to walk through the gardens at Innovation Place without seeing something I want to photograph. These photos are from several different sessions.

I was eating lunch by the pond when I noticed this flower in a spot of sunlight.

flower

And then beside it, a less colorful flower, but with a harvestman in it (not to mention a fly in the next flower). One of several arthropods known as "daddy long legs", harvestmen are arachnids, but not technically spiders.

flower and harvestman

The water lilies are flowering as well, wonderful splashes of color in the pond.

water lily

flowers

I'm a sucker for the hibiscus flowers as well, not so much the showy petals as the colorful details of the stigma and stamen.

Hibiscus flower

I keep looking, but I haven't seen many fishing spiders this year, mostly just a few small ones. I have spotted this larger one several times in the same area (at least I assume it's the same one). It's now guarding a ball of eggs. You have to move slowly when you approach and photograph them or else they dive and hide underwater.

fishing spider

On the other hand, there are an abundance of dragonflies around, and maybe not coincidentally, not many mosquitoes. There are obviously dragonfly larvae in the pond since I see their exuva on the reeds (the skin they shed when they crawl out of the water and become dragonflies).

dragonfly exuvia

I found this dragonfly soon after emerging, still drying and "inflating" its wings. Both the larvae and the adults are fearsome predators. The adults are amazing fliers, it's estimated they can accelerate in a straight line up to 4 g's and pull up to 9 g's when they turn in pursuit of prey. Fighter pilots eat your hearts out!

newly emerged dragonfly

As with most of my Innovation Place and walking to work photos, these were all taken with the little Sony RX100 that I keep in my pack. It does an amazingly good job for a tiny little camera.

See all 13 photos as a slideshow or overview

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