I watched this Blue-banded Bee in the garden. She flew in between two Salvia flowers, then pulled them together to hide. From me, most likely. Was amazing to watch. I had to shift my position to get the last shot so I could peek into the two flowers from a different angle….
Category: Insects
Learning from Nature
Amazing what you can learn from just observing nature. Early March I saw a lot of ants at the top of a young acacia tree and I thought the tree was in trouble, seeping sugary sap. This is at Birdsland Reserve by the big lake. A week later I discovered the ants were covering a…
Attracting bees
There’s been growing concern over the shortage of bees in our country and elsewhere. It seems a number of things are responsible for it: weather, the use of insecticides, lack of govt funding for support and research, etc. This simply encourages me all the more to keep planting things that I know the bees would…
Butterflies in the garden
I’ve been delighting in adding to our garden, plants and flowers I knew that butterflies would love. I watched an episode of Australian Gardening some months ago that spoke of developing our gardens for butterflies. I got inspired to do similar in our garden and now watch eagerly for the butterflies. I’ve even begun a…
Butterflies at Cranbourne Botanical Gardens
While exploring these gardens I saw a beautiful butterfly I’d not seen before, so welcome any comments about what the name might be 🙂 I thought it was gorgeous and beautifully marked and coloured, don’t you? And then I saw this Painted Lady which is a fairly common species here in Australia but still lovely…
The Butterfly Garden
Anyone who knows me personally knows that when I’m enthused about something I tend to put my all into it and get excited about my latest project. And so this one is no different. I was watching Gardening Australia on Ch2 last Saturday night and one of the segments was about a lady who is…
Working on my macro
Well, actually Nikon calls it a micro lens and it’s a 60mm AF-S lens. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with it and want to learn to master this lens. Lighting plays a key and at the moment I’ve been doing hand held but may have to consider using a tripod. Below: Hoverfly and daisy; bee…
The Butterfly House
One of my favourite places to visit is The Butterfly House. It is a hot house to visit and I was conscious that I shouldn’t change my lenses when inside the house. So I did a full circuit with my short lens (18-55mm) and then went out, changed lenses and went back in with the…
The Damaged Butterfly
It was very windy yesterday but fine and we took advantage of it and spent some time in the garden. Hubby found this butterfly in the garden with a damaged wing. We rescued it off the ground and put it in a bush. But not before it spent some time with us – it seemed…
Common Brown Butterfly
When we went out on Australia Day to buy new sheep for our property, I had to sit and wait in the car while Graham went to pick out the sheep. Trying to get down a stoney driveway and into an uneven paddock on crutches isn’t my idea of fun – I want to heal,…
The sunlit web
I love, when I’m walking around early in the morning, to see how the sunlight catches on things as it rises in the sky. On the day I took this shot I saw this very tangled web being highlighted by the sun. I wonder if the spider revels in the warmth of the sun? Before…
Insect and flower
I spied this insect in this tiny purple flower a few weeks ago. No idea what it is but like the colour combinations in this shot.