Category: Insects

Damsels & Dragons

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When you spend a lot of time hiking around marshes and swamps you are going to see a lot of Damselflies and Dragonflies. They are a lot of fun to watch, the way they hover and dart to and fro. It is amazing how quickly they can change direction. They look prehistoric and indeed they date back to the Jurassic period. While they might look scary, they are harmless to people and spend most of their time eating other more bothersome insects like mosquitos.

They are a lot of fun to photograph as well. Despite how frenetic they can be in flight, they often hover in place for short periods. They also land on leaves and sticks, remaining incredibly still long enough to photograph. They can see almost 360 degrees and are very difficult to get close to as any approach tends to spook them. However with a good telephoto lens you can get some really nice shots of them. The secret is to just stop and wait quietly when you come across them. If you stay very still they will go about their business and eventually land nearby.

This post contains a selection of the different Damselflies and Dragonflies which I have photographed over the last few years. I cannot really identify different types, but I choose photographs of subjects bearing different colors and patterns just to showcase the variety. Most were taken at the Indiana Dunes park in NW Indiana. A few were from my neighborhood in Chicago near Lake Michigan.

Damselflies are smaller and more slender than Dragonflies. The easiest way to tell the difference however is to note that Damselflies, like those pictured here, fold their wings back along their bodies when at rest.
Dragonflies by contrast rest with their wings extended. Notice the variety in the markings on their wings.
Their faces are fascinating. The eyes are huge, like wrap around goggles. Their mouths are almost always closed, but if you watch them carefully you will see them occasionally open up wide, and it looks like the entire top of the head hinges back.
Mating pairs are always fun to watch. The male clasps the female just behind the head and they fly together in perfect tandem.
See all those black spots in the sky? Those are Dragonflies at sunset. This photograph was taken out at Promontory Point, along the shore of Lake Michigan one year when they were really intense.
Dragonflies love to perch like this, grasping the top of a leaf or reed, calmly surveying their domain.
This is typical Damselfly posture when at rest.
Reds, Blues, Blacks, Yellows and Greens. Petty much the whole spectrum of colors can be found.
And, well just a bunch more to round out the show.

A Buggy Day

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Fully into summer now, with plenty of wild flowers blooming and insects of all kinds out and about. A recent hike at the Tolleston Dunes turned into a bugfest. Both literally in terms of the mosquitos, and photographically. When it comes to getting closeup shots of insects it helps to have a telephoto lens with a high magnification factor, that way you can get great images without having to be so close that you frighten off your subject.

The image at the top of this post was the last photograph I took that day. Near the upper left hand corner there is a Weevil, which looks like a beetle with a vacuum hose attachment where the face should be. I like how it appears as if the flower just above it is prepared pounce on the insect.

You would think that a green fly, on a green plant, with a green background would be difficult to spot. But the metallic sheen of this “Long Legged” fly makes it hard to miss. The metallic appearance is actually a diffraction effect.
It is hard to miss brilliant orange Butterfly Weed. This rather large hornet had the whole plant all to itself. Another reason for long focal length macro lenses, you are less likely to get stung.
And of course, Butterfly Weed attracts butterflies as well as hornets.
The harry, spiky beast on the right is a Plume Moth. First time I’ve ever seen one. Nature always has something new to discover, the more you look the more you see.
This is not another hornet, or bee. It is actually a Hover Fly. The eyes and wings give it away.
Lately I have been practicing taking photographs of insects in flight. A lot of flys, bees, etc. can be challenging to get clear photographs of because they are constantly moving about. If you spend enough time watching, you will notice that some species tend to buzz and hover about the same flower, or patch of flowers. In these situations it is not too hard to catch them in flight between brief landings. The key is to bump your shutter speed as high as you can, sacrificing aperture and ISO in order to freeze their motion.
The little white bump on this Black Eyed Susan. Look close (click on the image to view it full size) and you will see the rear end of a spider just to the left of what is its egg sac. I don’t think this particular spider choose a good location. The flower is right on the edge of the trail and the egg sac is in a very visible location.