Vivid Dancer Dragonfly Eating A Spider | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Vivid Dancer Dragonfly Eating A Spider | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet the Vivid Dancer Dragonfly! I captured this one eating what I think is a spider!?





Dragonflies are great helpers when it comes to controlling insects! I think I see wings there, so perhaps that is not a spider?





This happening was not captured here at the house, but in a area I like to go to here in our town! This area was near a water holding pond, there was plenty of activity going on! Of course you have to stop and look around to notice all the activity!





The Vivid Dancer Dragonfly is a common Dragonfly here. They are the smaller species of Dragonflies stalking and feeding on the smaller insects.





I get a kick out of the Dragonflies for the Dragonflies are our friends. Anything that helps control the insects is ok in my book!









I think that is a spider this Vivid Dancer Dragonfly is feeding on, however I thought I seen wings? Thought it looks like the cotton wood tree's cotton is on the insect so?? We do have the cottonwood tree here and I can honestly say I do not care for that tree haha! I just think it is cool to see the Vivid Dancer Dragonfly helping out as it is doing!

Thank you for coming by and seeing my photographs of this happening!

Bumblebee Hard At Work | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Bumblebee Hard At Work | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet again this Bumblebee! This Bumblebee is working on a Foxglove Flower, even this big Bumblebee can still fit into the flower blooms!





This Bumblebee acts aggressive but really, never had a bad experience. This species will challenge you by aggressively flying quickly into your face, or check you out by circling you. This is what bumblebee's do with flowers, they go round and round. They work on some flower blooms by circling them as well. This is just from my observations, if the Bumblebee does that in front of me I am sure they show the same behavior in your garden?

I do like the shot above showing the two sets of wings!



Some photographs I use ONLY for id use, some are stand alone photographs. Which is which is something I have to decide as the photographer. I feel I may put a couple of these shots out in the public as stand alone photographs? We will just have to wait and see?





I do not use my tripod all that much. Why? I feel tripods are restrictive when it comes to wildlife. I am not that far away from my subjects. If they would allow me closer I would change lenses and get in closer ha! Fact is I had a visitor here yesterday who did not stick around long and who was just to close! I did not have the time to change lenses..... if you are a photographer you know not everything comes out the way you see it in your head. All we can do is do our best!





This is the last photograph of this series I am showing. I am going to try to limit my photographs on these blogs to six or less. Lets see how I do with that ha!

Thank you for coming by and checking out this Bumblebee working hard on this Foxglove Flower. BTW the Foxglove does have it's bad point however the great thing about growing Foxglove Flowers is? The pollinators LOVE the Foxglove!

Mud Dauber Wasp in The High Desert | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Mud Dauber Wasp in The High Desert | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet the Mud Dauber Wasp that we have at our pond getting what else? Mud!





At this stage of the game these Mud Dauber Wasps have never given me any reason to think they are aggressive. They come for the mud provided by this small pond of ours. Never have seen them at the other pond.....





The Mud Dauber Wasps do what they do, then fly off. We are pretty good about checking for nests of any kind here. Never have seen a nest of these! Nor do I want to.





I am a sucker for shadows, I just like them and when I see a shadow like above I have been known to show the photograph! When the Mud Dauber Wasps are busy they do tend to turn their head and the activity away from me. I have noticed this behavior in other species as well.





Since the Mud Dauber Wasp has done nothing to make me think they are a pest, I just let them be. However to my understanding others do consider these Mud Dauber Wasps pests. I do make such things as nest building undesirable here, even though other species can make a nest rather quickly! Surprising the both of us as to how fast and where nest building happens. We do have to destroy some nests due to the stinging behavior of some of these species.

In this shot you can see where the stinger is, perhaps this is why the Mud Dauber Wasp turns it's head away from me? I have no intentions of taking the mud this Mud Dauber Wasp is working on, however the Mud Dauber Wasp does not know this right?





In the above shot, you can see the round ball of mud this Mud Dauber Wasp is working on. Seeing them fly with the mud is quite funny for take off is a tad bit hard. There has to be a thinking process?? These photographs I got right in there due to the Mud Dauber Wasp has never shown any aggression my way. Though I do not think I push the creature either. The Mud Dauber Wasp just does not act as if it wants to sting.

Thank you for coming by and checking out these new photographs I worked on yesterday however took these photographs back some time ago... just never got around to looking at.

Dragonfly of the High Desert of Oregon

Dragonfly of the High Desert of Oregon




Meet the Dragonfly of our home here in the High Desert of Oregon!

Hope you all had a good weekend? We got some things that needed done , done in the garden. Now it is time to start putting out the seeds for the future flowers and the visitors to our garden! Many of my photographs of 2014 did come from our own garden. These photographs of this Band-winged Meadowhawk is no different!

These photographs came from one of our ponds, and fruit trees that hang over that pond.



I do get really good questions asked of me! The questions that is on my mind this morning was if I just push a button and take many photographs of the subject? Well...... one thing that folks may not understand is, keeping that button pushed results in oh lets just say a lot of photographs!! So unless I want to go through what a thousand, two , five thousand photographs of the same exact subject the answer is no. I do not just keep the button pushed. If that was the case I would have so many photographs to go through!! OMG makes me wince at the thought!

Like many folks who have to have a lot of stimulation, one day I can have many photographs of many different things if that day has been a active day! This of course is out of my hands, wildlife is going to do what wildlife wants to do!

The photograph above is the first of these three photographs I took. I really do not know if the subject is going to stick around? So, first thing to do is get the subject used to the sounds of my camera, and to get whatever used to me per say. Walking slow, everything has to be done with purpose!! Taking a step, you better think about that step!

Adjust the lens, since I do not mess with my camera settings I do not have to worry about that. I do not use a tripod, typically. So I do not have to worry about a tripod scaring whatever wildlife. Take a shot, or a couple shots.



Step closer, depending on how the wild creature is behaving! This Meadowhawk or dragonfly was not showing signs of stress. Adjust the lens, take some photographs.

I personally refuse to put my lens on "auto". This is a lazy, bad habit when dealing with wildlife photography! Some lenses do not even have a auto feature! Get used to "manual", mode. Depend on your own ability to act quickly as well as the ability to read the creatures behavior. You know if a creature is ready to fly away! If you do not, practice, practice when you have practiced, practice some more! I also keep all my lenses on the "stabilizer", feature. If that lens has one?

When you do not use a tripod you have that chance of doing what everyone does, move. When dealing with such things as branch of a tree, and a creature, the branch moves, the leaves move and the creature will move on and on and on. This is just the way it is. You have to deal with this!



Depending on the creatures behavior, step closer. The shot above is the closest I felt I could get! I do not want to run off the creatures that visit our garden! These Band-winged Meadowhawks or dragonflies mate here in our garden. We also get other kinds of dragonflies here who will mate if they can find a mate! This took us years to build however a creature who can come and go as they please will not feel secure if they are constantly being threatened by people.

The background on these photographs is just the garden. Since this was August 1 of 2014 the garden was in full bloom. Seeing the leaves the Band-Winged Meadowhawk is on tells me this was our fruit tree that hangs over one of our small ponds. This tells me that the background on these shots is pointing out of the six foot dog fence, and that flower bed. Blurring out the fence, leaving the green and some other colors that are flowers!

Editing my photographs: These photographs had nothing done to them. I try to not do anything to them. I dont know photoshop and frankly neither does many of the people who think they know photoshop! Shutters at some of the photoshopped photographs I have seen .....

Just had a scare, news from Bend Oregon just said it was snowing! We have the door wide open and some of the windows, does not feel cold enough to snow!! It is not , raining here! We have flowers in bloom already! Others are getting ready to bloom with buds on them, like the lilacs! Last thing we need is snow or that horrible frost!! We even have some birds in nests here at home!!

Thank you for coming by and checking out these photographs of the Band-winged Meadowhawk from August 1, 2014!

Hoverfly On The Cosmos Flower Bloom

Hoverfly On The Cosmos Flower Bloom




Meet the Hoverfly. I have several other posts of the Hoverfly. This Hoverfly is busy on a Cosmos Flower Bloom. Hoverflies are beneficial to our gardens!



I ran across someones post gosh it was lately, however I cant remember whose? As if I would name drop anyways which I try not to do..... The thing that was written sounded as if the writer did not realize the Hoverfly is a beneficial insect. The ultimate insect we like to see in our gardens is of course the Honey Bee, however the Honey Bee is disappearing at alarming rates. This is a sad fact. Thus many gardeners are seeing other beneficial insects helping out like this species of Hoverfly.

I also grow plants inside the house. Bare with me here as I get this thought out. I noticed as one of my Spider plants was continuously flowering and giving me seeds what on earth is pollinating this house plant? So I watched..... results? House flies were in fact pollinating this Spider Plant of mine! Of course we are not real fond of these house flies, we also have blow flies here in our area do to the cattle, other lifestock in our area. Same results. These nasty , dirty insects are in fact pollinating our flowers and my house plants! I much rather have the Hoverfly then these kinds of flies! However we do not invite anything inside the house, they just show up just like everyone elses homes. Point being is pollinating. I get seeds off not only my Spider Plant......



You can see by the shadow of these shots I do use natural sunlight. The sun just happened to be positioned in the sky to cast the shadows you see.



I am not sure why we have a healthy population of such things as the Hoverfly? I have a theory that is all it is though. This theory of mine is , we had a neighboring property that was uncared for. Being uncared for , for the years it was resulted in natives plants flowering. Weeds really. These native weeds brought the Hoverfly in. A nice population of them! Now the home and property is cared for, we will just have to see what happens in 2015......



I may allow these native plants, basically weeds do there thing in one spot of the property, however the town does spray chemicals to kill such things. We do not use such things here, however we do understand why the town sprays the sides of the roads. Some of our roads are dirt, then covered with rocks. Native weeds will take over the world! Causing fires when the life cycle is over and the plants / flowers dry up. Driving over these dried up flowering, "weeds", the undercarriage of your vehicle will start fires. Wildfires are something everyone should be mindful of in the High Desert where we can get very dry. How many folks think of just driving over dry vegetation will cause a wildfire? When I first moved over here I never thought of such a thing! A second, (maybe third?), generation rancher / farmer here made this very clear to me!



There are many species of Hoverfly! This is the common species we have. The face I have noticed seams familiar with the Hoverflies I have seen here. Big eyes! Like a fly will have, and of course the different kinds of Hoverfly, hover! They beat their wings very quick allowing them to hover over the flowers in which they help pollinate! Dont kill them, just watch what happens with your fruit, flowers etc. !

Thank you for coming by my post! Happy growing in 2015!

Oregon Red Admiral Butterfly

Oregon Red Admiral Butterfly





Meet the Red Admiral Butterfly. These photographs were taken right here at home on the Raspberry leaves on June 6 , 2014.



One thing to note, we grow the Raspberries around our small ponds where the Raspberries can get the water they need here in the High Desert of Oregon without having to pay attention to how much water such berries need. The roots of the berry plants at times are completely water bound.

The Raspberries attract so many creatures to them, the water of course is a huge attraction to the wildlife! The High Desert can be a dry place! Fearing 2015 will be another year of dry conditions, wildfires etc.. We will just see what visits us this year?

Along with the small ponds, the flowers, the Raspberries this is also a protected area from cats and people. Many folks if they can see in this area from outside (typically this area is not seen from the outside when everything is in bloom and/or growing), will catch me just kicking back with my camera with the dogs just waiting to see what creatures show up!



On this day in June this Red Admiral Butterfly showed up. Not a small butterfly, not the biggest butterfly that visits our home. One of the more colorful butterflies!



I have started putting the dates on my posts so I can write another post of series of shots that are taken on different days if I want to. Some days we get a lot of different visitors showing up here!! Some days I am constantly shooting different series of different visitors. Visitors are wildlife that shows up.

I was asked why I do not have photographs of "friends", referring to people. I do not know how to explain to such folks with this mentality, that wildlife is my friend. I enjoy such creatures more so then human contact in the real world. Some of you know exactly what I mean!

I bring up at times while on social media the little boy who road his bicycle and stopped in the road where he could see me in my chair with my camera and said to me his parents were both outside if I want to talk with them. I thanked him for the invite and said if I am out there talking to your folks, who will talk to the birds? Of course I got a strange look before the little boy went riding to tell his parents what I said.

I dont care to learn of the local gossip. Who is doing what. We make our home a place we want to be. If a matter comes up I feel I need to put my two cents in as far as this town goes, we have a mayor who is easy enough to call up on the phone. I am shy that way haha



Such things as this Red Admiral Butterfly is easy enough to photograph. I do my best to make this a safe place for such things and I think such creatures as this Red Admiral Butterfly knows this? I do not do anything special other then keeping up the ponds, flowers, Raspberries and spending time outside without distractions.

I do notice , people have a hard time just being these days. Everyone is trying to impress each other, outdo each other..... The curse of being a human right? I have plenty of time to just ponder everything as I wait to see what visitor shows up next!

On twitter the other day butterflies came up. The breeding of, setting "free", the domesticated wildlife. Bred in captivity I feel these "wild", creatures loose the benefit of the true wild creatures. Even something so minute as even the butterfly. For all I know this butterfly could have been from a wedding or even a classroom? All I know is, this Red Admiral Butterfly stopped by and I was more then happy to photograph it!



I do watch such things as this Red Admiral Butterfly more so then photograph. Photographing my subjects really does not take long at all in most cases! Someone mentioned how long I must have been out taken photographs of another insect, how do you tell such a person that it did not take but a little time without making it sound like they are wasting their time reading a book and trying to impress all the onlookers? Perhaps this is why I like doing photography alone. Without the distractions of other people?

If you want to read up about this beautiful Red Admiral Butterfly I recommend going to any state, government or university website for actual facts. My observations are mine and I really can ramble on and on, however I really do not know what you all want me to ramble on about haha!

Thank you for coming by and seeing my photography of this day of the Red Admiral Butterfly.

White-lined Sphinx and the Foxglove Flowers

Mrsroadrunner Photography | White-lined Sphinx and the Foxglove Flowers




Meet the White-lined Sphinx. I call them hummingbird moths, always have and wrong or not I can remember this name quite easily ha!



I was already in the middle of my outside chores when this moth showed up at these Foxglove flowers in this part of the garden and it seamed to make a difference due to how close the White-lined Sphinx let me get? It already new I was out there....



Along with the hummingbirds, these White-lined Sphinx moths also like the Foxglove flowers. The difference in these is, they do not make that humming sound. Though big enough to catch the eye.



Only down side to having such things here in our garden, along with butterflies is they do eat some of our plants,fruit, veggies etc.. when they are young. I think it is worth the photographs and enjoyment we get watching them?





I made another blog with this species , though on another flower. The link if you want to look at those photographs is White-Lined Sphinx or Hawk Moth



The Foxglove Flower there is pretty easy to grow. If you do choose to grow this flower make sure you contain it somehow if it grows where you live as well as it grows here! Like every living thing, it will take over the world if it is allowed to and you do not want anything such as puppies, kitten, livestock thinking it is a meal. It is ONLY for the flowers to attract the wildlife like this White-lined Sphinx moth, and bumblebees really enjoy this flower!



The series of photographs of this White-lined Sphinx moth feeding on this patch of foxglove flower is pretty large so I will leave it at these photographs. I did show another photograph there on twitter of a photograph of one of these flying to the Foxglove flowers as it went further away , giving a good example of the size to the flowers.

Thank you for checking out this series of shots of this day of the White-lined Sphinx moth and the Foxglove Flowers!

Flight of The Bumble Bee

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Flight of The Bumble Bee




Meet one of my visitors! I have shown other photographs gotten of what I call a bumblebee.

This little series of shots taken in June of 2014 are on one of my many Lupine Flowers.



My observation of everything around me began as a child as many peoples had. I just never stopped. Many things I find interesting still today. Insects who visit my garden are some of the things I find interesting.



These days I have time to observe what I like too. Be it a small insect or a large mammal. As I had said before when this species showed up it was aggressive towards me After getting used to my routine , and if it wanted to work here in my garden, we were going to have to get along. After a couple days no more challenging me by flying into my face. Along with this behavior, others who showed up after the first one never showed this behavior to me. I found this interesting. As if in some way communication between the bees had happened without inviting me.



After everyone learned to get along taking photographs of this rather large insect got easier as far as being comfortable around each other.

Round and round the bee would go, doing it's work around the Lupine Flower. Starting at the bottom of the flower blooms and working it's way up until no more peddles were open.

Thank you for stopping by and see my photographs! Trying to show as many of my photographs as I can until the busy time of the year will start up for me, this will be spring, however the way the weather has been lately this might be earlier then I even thought?

Hoverfly a Beneficial Insect

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Hoverfly a Beneficial Insect



Meet the Hoverfly! In the last four years of writing about my photography you may have seen several posts about the Hoverfly? The family of the Hoverfly is a pretty large family. I welcome the Hoverfly to our garden at least this species ( Scaeva pyrastri (?) to be technical), they are a beneficial insect and one who I feel the general public needs to know about. I make it no secrete I am a seed freak, to obtain seeds from any plant it is nice to have help.



Photographing the Hoverfly can be a little tricky , since after all they do "Hover", however when they land they give you a few seconds to get a couple shots.

You may think the photograph above and the photograph below are exactly the same, look again! If you push on the photograph the photograph will come up bigger if you need the photo to?



The plant this Hoverfly just happened to be photographed on is a Columbine. I have been asked about lenses, no special lens. Just my all around lens. I look over my photography, keep what comes out and delete what does not. Name the usable files. That is typically it. You can do this too! Just takes some time and effort!

It helps to have insects the Hoverfly feeds on as well! Good for such things as the benefitial insects, no so good if you want a perfect winning flower and if you use chemicals to achieve this. Kill the bad bugs, you also kill the good bugs. Just the way chemicals work.



Back to doing what the Hoverfly does, Hover!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my photography of the Hoverfly!