utenzi

How's this for a pair of bugs. One small and kinda cute in a buggy way and the other huge and icky. It's like a hummingbird bug. It hovers at a flower and that long tongue goes in then off it flies to find another flower. *shudder* As Roxanne points out in the comments, the "cute bug" is a cucumber beetle and apparently they're bad news. Since I took the picture at a botanical garden, it's not my problem. :-)

When I took this picture I didn't even see the spider. I selected for just the spider in Photoshop and made it a little darker so it would show up better in the picture. The real spider is almost exactly the same color as the plant. It was freaky when I uploaded the pictures to my computer and saw the spider engaged with the bee. I thought "Where the hell did that come from?"

By and large I don't mind insects. At least as long as they're not crawling on me, that is. In fact I love to take pictures of insects since they're so foreign looking. But I draw the line when they sting me. And an unprovoked "sting" at that. Take a gander at Exhibit A over there to the left. I know it looks weird from that angle but I assure you, it's just my arm. The back of the left arm, to be specific. That wrinkled thing is my left elbow pictured from the rear. Kinda freaky looking, huh? Hmph. If we can get off the topic of how odd my arm looks for a moment, I'd like to point out how red and swollen the poor arm is. A bee or hornet---I never saw it so I'm not sure what it was---flew up to me and stung me as I was walking across my parent's driveway on Sunday evening just before I packed up my car for the trip home. It was odd 'cause I was just minding my own business, not near any nest or food source. Damn bugs! The back of my arm still...

The phrase is more commonly "getting your ducks in a row" but I never really understood the meaning of that and besides, there's a lot more bugs around here than ducks. So here's a perspective study with several moths lined up, more or less, along the heads of nearby plants. I've been thinking of taking up some arty hobby again, after a long lapse, and pictures like this help inspire me. I've not decided what medium to work with tho. I used to do mostly oils with an occasional foray into black monochrome watercolor mixed in. This time, I don't know. Watercolor, acrylic, pastels... I'd love to work with charcoal but I've never shown any talent for it. That's the type of work that I like best. To me it reaches into the soul of the subject being portrayed far more than the colorful but superficial feeling paints and gels.

Is it time to call Orkin?

I came across this Cowboy Act a couple of weeks ago at Sarah Duke Gardens. The bug was on a cluster of flowers well off the path so I held out my camera, all zoomed out, and hit the shutter a few times and hoped for the best. I was amazed to find that I actually had a shot with a fairly good focus on the bug. To me, this picture reminds me of the album cover of some 80s hair band. Or maybe something that Meatloaf would have liked to have on one of his covers. LOL Ride 'em Cowbug!

The past few days have been rather warm so I decided to put up my screens. I don't normally use my front porch in cold weather so I'd not noticed that there's been carpenter bee activity on one of my porch posts . As you can see, it's quite a hole they created. I noticed this hole as I was taking the glass door off of my porch entryway. Fortunately I had a can of hornet spray so I promptly dosed down this hole. And then, while dying bees were scrambling out, I replaced the glass door with my screen door. Here you see one of the bees on the porch right after it tumbled out of the hole in my porch post. It's still looking pretty healthy at this point. As bees go, this is a pretty sturdy looking species. Oddly enough that didn't help it against the chemicals in the hornet spray. And no, I don't feel sorry for the nasty bug. Like the title up there says: My House is NOT Food! Damn bugs! Here you can see that the carpenter bee is starting to lose its coordinatio...