best part of the day: macro world

04-06-25 Well I think we can safely say the amazing Spring is over, and the exceptional weather with it. We needed some rain and got some, so it is not all bad. But we seem to have returned to a rather unexceptional Scottish Summer which means that about one day in ten is worth (getting out of bed and) going out with a camera. The rest kinda suck with low grey cloud and meh temps. The butterflies, like myself, do not appreciate this weather and largely stay hidden. I went out on several occasions and took some okay photos but have skipped forward 10 days because nothing of great value went down. Except my spirits.

cheerful bullfinches (2 x males)
wondered briefly if a gay bullfinch was even a thing?

I am making a half-hearted attempt to do some run training as well. Mary is still in recovery from a few mystery injuries that are plaguing her run-life and will hopefully be back in the game shortly. Until then I do an occasional run without a camera but it is such a poor shadow of my former running career that it does little to inspire more of the same. I also force myself out when the sun looks like considering an appearance. On this occasion: Warriston. The previous visit I had put the macro lens on and was just getting into the macro-world zone when the council officials threw me out. Paul and Danielle apologised profusely, but the forecast had high wind warnings and they feel duty bound to close the gates in case of trees falling on visitors. (H&S overkill maybe but Council Policy.) It turned out okay as I went past Powderhall and chatted to Dan while we watched a male kingfisher fish in the WoL there.

Okay I have relented and slipped in a couple of photos from that day (29th May). The kingfisher was looking a bit drab - that will be nesting plumage and a lot duller than the dating-and-mating plumage of earlier in the season. Even cranking the settings in post fails to make anything special. It is only right they are trying to fly under the radar currently as they will be raising a family nearby.

silver-ground carpet

We are just approaching a crux in the year when a few species - speckleds, small torts, ringlets, small whites, commas, common blues, DGFs etc. will put out new broods to enjoy the coming Summer weather. Nice to see a fresh batch of chocolate brown speckled woods.

wren

wren and aphids

this obliging crow sat happily for a few photos
knowing I have a bag of peanuts in my backpack

A clipped large white wandered past the crypts stopping to feed on the bramble flowers. It was photo-bombed by a tree bumble which accidentally triggered a take-off.

rhodies in bloom

Broad centurian, Chloromyia formosa

I have googled most of these small flies and bugs not knowing many by name. So IDs might be wildly inaccurate. I'm not sure how much that actually matters as I take their photos for aesthetic purposes mostly but do feel I should make an effort to begin to learn the names of repeat offenders. I do have problems with the hoverflies, at least all the ones that look nearly identical. A book only compounded the difficulties rather than clearing the matter up.

Heliophilus pendulus
I like this one because it is easy to ID with its footballer jersey stripes.

St John's wort

with Oedemera lurida

possibly a Pine Sawfly caterpillar
(near some pine trees)

eyed ladybird although markings were subtle

cream-spot ladybird

cream-spot

I do like this tree which flowers annually. I suspect it is just a rhododendron bush that has been cunningly pruned into a more tree-like shape.

Miridae, Bracken bug

eyed ladybird

this might be a Greater black spruce bark aphid
it walked in an almost comically pronounced way

large pine aphid?

Crabronina - square-headed wasp

platypalpus?

Harlequin ladybird and larva

pupa

The lack of hoverflies is a reflection on the rather low temperatures. Just one or 2 about today, and those sitting reluctantly on warm stone waiting for the sun to appear. Not particularly happy to have my lens approach closer and closer, although some bravely ignored it or were already dead from cold or depression.

Syrphus

exciting when one lands on your ear

I believe the closeness of eyes denotes male

I don't come across these tiny red spider mites often probably because I don't wear reading glasses when outdoors. They are really small and require I hold my breath while trying to get the camera as close as possible to these almost invisibly small creatures. They are so small they can't even grow proper hair but just have a few scattered around. Also they don't stay still long. Not the best background for these very red beasties but probably my best pics of them to date. A work in progress.

google suggests Delia radicum

Google lens isn't fantastic for flies (as above) and tends to use words like housefly. Weirdly the Large Book of Insects doesn't have Delia radicum but does have Housefly, Musca domestica. Confusingly the Habitat is described as Around humans, farmlands (less common in urban area, including houses, than in the past.) A lot of the time I am less happy and less certain after looking up the insect book than before. Clearly there are too many insect species and we should have just a few dozen which all look markedly different. If a book with 600 pages and nearly ten times that number of photos can't sort them out succinctly I don't think it's a battle I'm going to win. The hoverflies book is worse yet and has me huffily deciding to use about 5 species names only and if that isn't them, then too bad, sue me.

I wasn't expecting a red admiral today. It was enjoying the newly cut grass and although it flew off if I approached too quickly, it wouldn't go far. I was able to sidle up really close and took a 35 photo stack of head and shoulders which when processed in Helicon looked shit! Just to let you know not every great idea makes it off the drawing board. Not sure what went wrong but I have changed the settings of the stacking and will try again soon as my renewal fee for Helicon is coming up in a few weeks and I haven't had much use of it lately. I generally tend to use a larger F number and live with the depth of field it gives although in theory using a smaller DoF and stacking loads of images should give a better result. I'll do a few tests to see if I should sign up for more Helicon or not. It's a good processing software, I'm just not sure I use it enough.

Heliophilus pendulus again
on an oxeye daisy

barkfly, booklouse, barklouse

Three names for this alien looking creature that you'll probably never see unless you go looking for it. I have found them on gravestones before. You start by looking for little smudges, just tiny differences from the stone colour. If you find one tap nearby and see if it moves. If it moves get the camera on it. I was very pleased to come across a couple of these today having failed to get ideal photos last time. They are far too close to the colour of the background and the camera struggles to focus. The book says they may be 4~5mm but that seems much bigger. Maybe because they are so well camouflaged and nearly invisible they seem smaller. I spent quite some time getting these photos and came away boggle eyed trying to focus on this ghostly bug. Look at those mottled alien patterns. I think they are fantastic. Terrible name: Mesopsocus. Like a bad anagram or something written backwards. Does not roll off the tongue, which is a shame as I'd like more of them in my life. There were 2 on the Peter Smellie stone (previously famous for hoardes of orange ladybirds overwintering although not great numbers last Winter) West of the crypts.

This winged creature looked like it might be the adult into which the larvae develop. But I can't find any suggestion of this being the case and maybe the similar looking face is just a coincidence. I am not sure the wingless forms aren't the finished adult item. And yet such a similar looking face and headparts?

one got onto my arm

When you are working close to a gravestone it helps to lean a wrist or heel-of-hand on the large solid stone to help reduce camera shake. While doing this one of these charming bugs got onto my hand. It slowed down (they are medium-fast joggers on the flat) when it encountered the forest of hairs on my wrist and I was able to photograph it. It gives some sense of scale to see the soft downey hairs of my wrist (!) as thick wiry hurdles over which the barkfly was clambering. I was really keen to get a shot of it on my watch strap as that gave a clearer sense of scale but on the flatter ground it was off, scooting up my sleeve. I'm slightly ashamed to say I lost sight of it and trust it came out and fell unhurt to the ground when I gently gave my jumper a shake. It is a worry when photographing such tiny creatures that I could accidentally harm them without even noticing. I came away from one gravestone lean, to notice I had inadvertently squished a greenfly. 😢

Anthocoris

Now this was perhaps the highlight of the bug wars! I recognised it as a shieldbug late instar but didn't know which sort until I got home and googled it, cross referencing that with the shieldbug laminate. It turned out to be a red-legged shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes (a much better name to conjure with.) A great shape and some superb if muted colours going on. I had taken the photo with a softbox flash - it was on the shaded side of the stone, but the titanium greens and purples weren't really showing until I got home and slightly cranked it in post. What a great looker! The adult beast is a rather disappointing brown thing by comparison although if you catch its carapace in the sunlight you can see hints of the greens and purples similar to the final instar. Unfortunately I didn't fully appreciate the great beauty of the animal at the time or I would have taken more photos. One to watch out for!

another miridae sp. maybe Neolygus contaminatus

So this one caught my attention when it caught the sunlight and nearly gave off a luminous glow. It made a hasty escape but I got it on my finger and it settled in the new environment. I was able to hold it up to the lens and the sharp dots on its eye were possibly the smallest thing I'd seen all day. Not that I saw them in real life - just through the macro lens!

another backlit beauty

another miridae, possibly the nymph of Campyloneura virgula

I was on my way out the cemetery when I saw this on the underside lip of a gravestone. At first I thought it was a spider then realised it was a weevil. Google suggests Otiorhynchus. It was not coming out to play and I'm not sure if it was still alive.