Bugs in the garden

[ewx]

There are a lot of hoverflies.

These were on the ?sage.

I think it's got the remains of a hoverfly:

This one really is near-white to the eye rather than yellow, it's not an artefact of the camera:

I have fairly regular bee visits too:

This is actually quite a noisy activity - clearly audible from a 2-3m away:

The ants were pretty challenging to photograph:

…having got the MP-E 65 out for the ants I returned to the hoverflies, one of which was pretty cooperative:

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Great photos!

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Ooh, lovely pictures! Hooray for my favourite hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus! (That one is a male, as are all but one of your other photos as far as I can see.) Also, those are fantastic pics of the leafhoppers.

The bee looks cute. Can't ID it at that angle, but she has a lot of pollen!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

How do you tell male & female hoverflies apart?

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

The males have eyes that touch on the top of their head. The female's eyes are clearly separated by a bit of head-ness.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I shall look out for that in future.

[lnr]

We were taking photos of bugs today too, but not as good as yours!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=46093233&l=519efdf545&id=36921469

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Nice work -- and in the previous post, too!

[Alas the downside of seeing your collections of macro work is that I suddenly lose all enthusiasm for putting up the post I was going to write the other week but couldn't due to DoS: a collection of slides, taken recently at Oxford's botanical gardens and developed in the kitchen sink...]

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Those ants are spectacular!

[emperor]

looks like you disturbed a nest there...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They'd already broken through to the surface (as they sometimes do; I'm not sure why). Granted I did disturb it a bit more by removing some of the grass to get a clearer shot.