Every picture tells a story
It has been suggested that the Common Map butterfly (Cyrestis thyodamas) – also called the Oriental Map – relies for its survival on resting in an upside-down position (1, 2). Or … Continue Reading Which way up to read The Map?
Red Admirals love apples! Or more precisely, they like rotten apples and other wind-fallen or over-ripe fruit which has sat on the ground for a while and started to rot … Continue Reading Tasting with your feet! Butterfly tarsi.
A drab brown butterfly rests on a tree trunk, its jagged outline providing a perfect camouflage against the moss, twigs and broken branches of the tree. The underside of this … Continue Reading What a beauty! Different wings for different duties.
If like me, you like wandering around sand dunes – perhaps whilst you are on holiday by the seaside – keep an eye out for sand wasps. In particular, digger … Continue Reading Little diggers – Bembix sand wasps
I often find, when I take a set of photographs, that I am initially disappointed with the results. The reason being that one has such great expectations regarding the results, … Continue Reading Red lacewing – beauty in warning colours
You would not know, just by looking at this wasp – a Hairy Flower wasp – that it lays its eggs on beetle larvae living underground. Although the adults feed … Continue Reading Hairy Flower wasp
Last October (2017) I had the pleasure of spending a few days in a delightful bungalow at Malee’e Nature Lovers Bungalows; a delightful resort, nestled under shadow of Doi Chiang Dao, Thailand’s … Continue Reading Denizens of the dappled forest: butterflies
I am very fond of these lizards, which are common and easy to see in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia. The Changeable or Oriental Garden lizard, Calotes versicolor is a widespread lizard … Continue Reading A common or garden lizard!
This striking object is the cast skin of a cicada nymph. It sits on a fern, discarded. A testament to a life spent underground; large fossorial fore-legs, adapted to … Continue Reading Emergence and rebirth: the life of a cicada
I came across this very attractive bumblebee feeding on Fuchsia flowers in the gardens of the King chedi on Doi Inthanon, northern Thailand. It really is a lovely bumblebee; the … Continue Reading A big black, beautiful bumblebee!
One of the pleasures of trying to photograph butterflies, is that you never know what you might find. One afternoon last November (2017) in northern Thailand, as the sun was setting … Continue Reading Tigers in the grass: milkweeds and mimicry
When I first came across this large spider, I wondered what it was doing with a piece of old leaf. Large Nephila spiders like this produce large asymmetric orb webs on … Continue Reading Leaf butterfly: caught in the net!
Last summer I made a number of visits to the Hotel Semáforo de Bares, an attractive location in NW Spain, with panoramic views over the sea and Cape Bares (Cabo … Continue Reading Swallowtails in Galicia: Subspecies and generations
Reduvid bugs (Reduvioidea) – of which there are more than 7,000 named species – have evolved a diverse range of structural and behavioral adaptations to enable them to capture prey (4), … Continue Reading Resin bugs: walking sticky traps
Although the Lulworth skipper (Thymelicus acteon) has a very restricted distribution in the UK – along the south coast of Dorset – it is widespread and abundant in Spain, where it … Continue Reading Frisky skippers: courtship of the Lulworth skipper.
Looking at this photograph of a bumblebee with a sprinkling of pollen grains on its head, made me wonder, how often do they groom themselves? Some bumblebees get absolutely covered … Continue Reading Bumblebee grooming
