Bug Nation

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Yellow Woolly Bear

October 18, 2011 Bug Nation

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 [...]

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House Fly Cafe

October 11, 2010 Bug Nation

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 [...]

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Dragonfly or Damselfly? A Few Clues

May 25, 2010 Bay Area

Re-posted from last year — in tribute to burgeoning life on the springtime pond. In this melee of global strife and catastrophe, there’s at least one thing you can know for sure: dragonfly or damselfly. I blame the awesome macro of my telephoto lens for this post. I went to UC Berkeley Botanical Garden for [...]

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Bees and Their Fennel

August 11, 2009 Bay Area

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…

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Return to the Mother Ship

July 18, 2009 Bay Area

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

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Checkerspot Anonymity

May 21, 2009 Bay Area

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 [...]

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Spring in Micro (and Macro)

April 27, 2009 Photography

My lens life felt banal this week, so I moved in and went macro. Super macro. I call it my “bug lens” but it’s actually a set of two lenses which go by the names of Raynox DCR-150 and Raynox DCR-250. They’re $40 gifts from macro heaven that snap on to the lens of my [...]

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A Cooperative Chalcedon Checkerspot

April 22, 2009 Bay Area

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 [...]

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Bay Area Painted Lady Butterflies Are Back

March 28, 2009 Bay Area

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 [...]

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