» Bug Nation

Yellow Woolly Bear

ingrid — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:43:47 +0000

My caterpillar ID is rusty, to say the least, so a Flickr user helped me identify this caterpillar as a Yellow woolly bear or Spilosoma virginica — destined to become a tiger moth. I posted about a different variety of woolly bear after a trip to Bodega Head last year where we got some close [...]

Spring Spiderlings

ingrid — Tue, 31 May 2011 05:38:07 +0000

I saw what looked like a clump of mud sticking to the wall outside my kitchen window. It looked, at first, like the remnant of a Cliff Swallow nest . . . the muddy scars I saw frequently in the Bay Area — the artifacts of their once viable mud mortar homes. But some part [...]

House Fly Cafe

ingrid — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:14:04 +0000

Could be a diner shuttered by the Health Department, or . . . A house fly doing what house flies do: bringing up saliva to liquefy food. Flies tend to stand still through their moments of digestion, making macros of this phenomenon possible. Shot on a friend’s porch, after a rain deluge, with my Panasonic [...]

Must … Re … Build

ingrid — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:15:10 +0000

When you consider that a wave of a hand, a cloud burst, a wing swooping through the maze of silk can destroy hours of labor, it's inspirational watching pure pragmatism rule the day ...

A Dragonfly’s Dinner

ingrid — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:07:41 +0000

It was only after I zoomed in on the big screen that I realized he'd been grabbing airborne snacks and coming back to this perch to dine.

Silks

ingrid — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:32:06 +0000

A noiseless, patient spider, I mark'd, where on a little promontory it stood isolated; Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself;

A Different Kind of Bear: Woolly

ingrid — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:49:18 +0000

It's sometimes hard to believe the stories about caterpillar swarms so large, their leaf crunching wakes people in the mornings ...

A Jumper

ingrid — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:05:15 +0000

This Red-Backed Jumping Spider was in "I'm outta here" mode before my lens even moved in.

59 Minutes with the Raynox

ingrid — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:47:12 +0000

That means 59 minutes of lunch hour when I could have been eating, drinking, working, napping but was instead, roaming a garden with my FZ50 and Raynox in hand.

Little Flying Monkeys

ingrid — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 08:35:35 +0000

Damselfly faces seem expressive -- awesome, wide-eyed, bulbous monkey gazes ... [see full-size image ...]

The Silky Wonders of Wunderlich

ingrid — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:34:53 +0000

Picking up from my previous post — about the rare and elusive Linyphia Vaudvillea … here are a few additional spider (Araneae) observations from our walk at Wunderlich Park in Woodside. I’ve perused countless field guides and websites on California spiders but am still unable to identify the aforementioned species. Other spiders and webs are [...]

Puttin’ on the Ritz . . . Spider Style

ingrid — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:30:49 +0000

I didn’t actually see the Vaudevillian face as I shot the spider image (below). Hugh and I were wandering through Wunderlich Park in Woodside (California), impressed by the miles of spider silk, strung like hammocks over the forest. Some were laid in sheets, some were funnel webs. (I’ll write a bit more on the landscape [...]

Bees and Their Fennel

ingrid — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:23:30 +0000

It never fails that fennel is the best medium for my bee photography -- even if it does render consistently yellow backdrops for my bee images...

Return to the Mother Ship

ingrid — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:47:30 +0000

This honey bee was one of a stream of honey bees, hypnotized into the maw of this cactus flower.

Wasp Art

ingrid — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:53:47 +0000

Wasp Nest – ©ingridtaylar I didn’t see it this way through the viewfinder — the aquarelle tone and texture of this wasp nest, clutching the painted boards. (Just as I didn’t see the pixie face of a blue damselfly I’d been shooting over a pond — until I offloaded those giant orbs-for-eyes onto my Mac.) [...]

Checkerspot Anonymity

ingrid — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:36:41 +0000

These are checkerspot butterflies for sure. But when I originally posted the possibility of “Bay” checkerspot on the first photo (taken at Sibley), an astute commenter at Flickr corrected my ID: “Unfortunately that is not a Bay checkerspot butterfly.” Simple as that. Got it. Endangered, not likely. If it had been a Bay checkerspot, it [...]

The Short Story of the California Red-Backed Jumping Spider

ingrid — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:20:32 +0000

Phidippus johnsoni – Red-Backed Jumping Spider Edited to add (7/11/11): Thanks to a couple of knowledgeable and generous commenters (below) the positive ID on this jumping spider is “Ms.” ——————— I found this little Mr. (or Ms.) on the kitchen ceiling a few days ago. Before I could grab my telephoto to see precisely what [...]

A Cooperative Chalcedon Checkerspot

ingrid — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:44:02 +0000

I’ve only hiked Gwin Canyon in the East Bay one time. That’s because on my way down, like a knucklehead, I was so enamored with the scene — the aromas of fennel, the calls of wild turkeys (or were they peacocks? I could swear) — the butterflies and bumble bees swarming wildflowers — that I [...]

Bay Area Painted Lady Butterflies Are Back

ingrid — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:25:20 +0000

Bay Area residents are seeing them in the hundreds and thousands, these winged Painted Ladies making their way north on a regular migration. I didn’t realize they were pushing on through until we saw a blanket of these vivid wings swaying atop fruit blossoms. They honored us with a few poses before flitting up to [...]