Wild Light

A honeybee picks up a load of pollen while a field of Aster, a popular perennial with many different bees and birds, and one of the latest blooming wildflowers.

Experience ultra-cool bee noir in the underbrush.

Perhaps not as cool as a praying mantis with the same posture, front legs outstretched, still I like the lighting on this fly, performing its early evening cleaning ritual this spring. I was stalking a newborn mantis when I cam across this, and couldn’t resist.

See a praying mantis ready for battle.

I’ve been working on images of fireflies this summer, and I’ll post some soon. Right now the only ones I see are unlucky males, on a fruitless search for a mate.

Fireflies make a brief appearance in Hedgehog in the Fog, an excellent 1975 animation by the Russian artist Yuri Norstein.

I’m not sure if there are more mosquitoes than normal this summer, but our wet spring seemed to increase their numbers. Have they been less of a problem in other areas?

I still find them fascinating, and photograph them whenever I can, even while they bite me.

Here’s one waiting for the right victim, photographed appropriately in Hell.

Detroit pop band PAS/CAL released their debut album, I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura last week. Here’s one of my photograph’s of Casimer Pascal from the summer of 2003.

Intense and oblivious in their competition, two sparrows seem to kiss during an afternoon battle.

From George Eliot’s Felix Holt, the Radical:

The tiniest birds,
With softest downy breasts,
have passion in them,
And are brave with love.

See two sparrows battle a winter storm.

Using only existing light to illuminate these bees can be difficult, especially when they’re in flight. Here I was able to use the sun to light up and capture the detail in this worker’s wings.

See a bee collision.