Well you knew it was going to happen. It is june and the mosquitos have emerged and are in fine biting form. Hiking river trails for the next few months is going to be a bloodbath, so to speak. But being outside is still better than being inside, so I hit up the Heron Rookery trail. Perhaps not the easiest choice as this trail runs along the little Calumet river in a flood plain, so I was slogging through swarms of the little bloodsuckers. Totally worth it though.
Most of the ephemerals have bloomed and faded away by now. However the remains are still beautiful in their own right.
Some sort of beetle larva emerging from a tree by the river. Kinda sad (for the tree), kinda gross. But nature is what it is and in that sense it is still beautiful.
Getting a good shot of a bugs face involves a lot of patience and luck. These macro shots have a very narrow depth of focus, and the leaf is bobbing all around even when you cannot feel a breeze. The key is to be patient and wait for that brief moment when everything is still. Challenging under any circumstances, but even more so when you are being swarmed by mosquitos.
I’d managed to photograph this same insect with a long snout for a face before and learned that it is a Weevil. I have found that once you come across something interesting like this little fella, something clicks in your brain, new neural connections are established and all of a sudden you start noticing them all over the place. The human eye-brain detector system is pretty amazing.
Ok. One of these guys is NOT having a good day, and it is not the spider. This is a good example of the extra value that this kind of close up photography adds to a hike. I only saw the spider when I took the photo, it is quite small and its meal is even smaller. Totally did not know what I had captured until I was looking at my images back home after the hike.
This spider is still patiently waiting for his meal to come along. Spiders both fascinate and creep me out.
The body on this one was easily a couple inches long. I have no idea if it stings or bites, but with the black-orange-red color scheme he looks totally badass.
The spectacular blossoms are long gone, but the beauty is not diminished one bit.