Wild Light | Wildlife Photography : Insect Art : Bird Art : Honey Bee Art

Bumblebee hop

Rick — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:19:20 +0000

A short hop in a busy day, a bumblebee darts across my backyard dandelion highway. The dandelions were late this year, but are out in full force now, providing pollen for many ants and other insects.

In the larger Zoomified image in the link below, you can see some pollen particles scattered in the air by the leap.

Here’s an experiment to see an enlarged image. Click here to Zoomify it.
I’m working on a way to enlarge it within this post, withought the link.

Racing cardinal

Rick — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:51:16 +0000

Earlier a sonnet, and now a nervy cardinal races toward the weekend.

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See a spring pause.

Wild Notes

Rick — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:50:24 +0000

From reader and correspondent Timothy Ladd, a sonnet.

——— Wild Notes ———

The charming cardinal is our year-round friend,
Warbling wild notes unnoticed in the pines,
While other gaudy plumes will have us spend
Our greater powers on their rarer signs.
Content yourselves with easy arcs of swallows,
Twittering till the shallow end of day.
The jay will startle. Every starling follows
Raucously its twin. House sparrows say
Their feeble thoughts in hordes so loud
It drives the finch away. And we, bereft,
Hear feathers of a nightingale in cloud
Overhead, find down an eagle must have left,
And disregard all glory we have heard
Come streaming from that scarlet bird.

Tenhave Woods

Rick — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:18:52 +0000

Saturday was the Royal Oak Nature Society’s 2008 Open House at Tenhave Woods and despite the cool and sometimes rainy conditions I managed to crawl on my belly like a reptile to find this ant traversing a serrated leaf edge.

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See an ant in a sea of gold.

Avian obscenities

Rick — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:03:18 +0000

Tiny yellow bundles of energy, two male goldfinches shout avian obscenities midair.

Not a good photograph, but it gives an idea of their Lilliputian passion.

See two birds collide.

John Berkey

Rick — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:35:33 +0000

Artist John Berkey has died, one of the great illustrators of the last half-century.

He was honored several times by his fellow artists, but was mostly ignored by SF fans, despite his influence on our vision of the future, spaceflight in particular.

I’ll miss his painterly images.

E J Detmold

Rick — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:32:33 +0000

One of the great animal artists, here’s a bee painting by Edward Julius Detmold.

See a bee collision.

Sunset ritual

Rick — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:17 +0000

Early evening by a swampy riverside, a grasshopper prepares for its end-of-day sunset rituals.

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See an ant on the run.

The Claws That Catch

Rick — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:24:56 +0000

A fierce aerial battle between two feisty starlings, they always seem to recover with no apparent harm after these tiffs.

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See an avian mini-Olympics.

Count down the night

Rick — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:20:22 +0000

A sketch from another project:

Reflected stars whisper of eternity, watched silently while counting down the night.

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See an afternoon of contrasts.