How quickly the summer can sweep by, with no thought to the idle passing of time through photography! Fostering dogs, keeping busy with work, home improvement projects and Colorado's apparent recent fascination with severe rainstorms and Seattle-like weather have all conspired to fill the days! Fun, and slightly wet, activities to be sure, but it is good to sneak back out and visit with the smaller residents of this planet!
The gardens at the Westminster Butterfly Pavilion have really come along nicely (helped quite a bit, no doubt, by the interesting spate of moisture currently enjoying an extended stay) and offer numerous opportunities to photograph a host of invertebrates!
I was able to finally track down a great little milkweed beetle in the garden, and got this rather nifty shot of his mouthparts (look at that sharp cutting portion for munching through the tough milkweed leaf).
Here is another good view of our little milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus), showing the pretty cool bisection of the eye by the antenna!
The ubiquitous harvestman makes a regular appearance throughout the garden. We can be pretty confident of capturing harvestman, aphids and bees every single visit.
I managed to sneak up a rather amorous pair of striped cucumber beetles. I think that the smaller male is on top and the larger female is resting on the leaf. Ah...le parfum doux l'amour!
While few insects visit the rather poisonous milkweed beyond our previous friend the milkweed beetle (and, of course, the monarch butterfly), bees certainly provide their timeless and critical pollination skills!
Here's a nice shot of a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome serrulata) just as a local namesake arrives on the scene to take advantage of the full gorgeous blooms.
A neat shot of a honeybee in mid-flight, heading towards the beautiful flowers of the Rocky Mountain Bee Plant. I really like how the wings are a vivid blur as the bee motors along in search of pollen.
Clearly, the summer has been a bit rough on this young lady, as evidenced by the rather tattered condition of her wings. I am still amazed at how bee's eyes are so furry!
Just as I was preparing to head indoors to teach a photography class, I managed to snag a final photo of this little fly with amazing green eyes and really nifty markings on the wings. Perhaps a deer fly?
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