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!

Verbena Flower Blooms

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Verbena Flower Blooms




Meet the Verbena Flower. Some folks may know them called other names? I need some color who knows you may as well?





We grow our Verbena in a large flower pot in direct east sunlight. The flowers do well in this direct sunlight, the camera does tend to throw a fit in this sunlight. We have not tried the Verbena directly in the ground.



Verbena comes in all kinds of colors! Some of the blooms when they get older even turn to another color! The Verbena also has a nice smell to them which is why they draw in some wildlife??

I personally do not pick our flowers due to wanting their seeds. Every year I try and keep the seeds in the same pot.... come to think of it in 2014 I believe the Verbena seeds did fall, bloom in the ground near the pot. This happens to several of our flowers!



I do have a mix of soil I mix myself. Keeping brand names to myself here is a list.

A high end blend of soil (mind you this "high end blend", soil we do drive to the bigger towns to buy this for we can not find it in our area and it is spendy!! ),

a mushrooms blend (hence the mushrooms that grow here),

a cheaper all around house plant blend (we buy this in bulk bags. Keeping AWAY from the soils that promise to help with feeding or moisture by adding additives. That stuff is no good for us, throws me off),

Peat Moss is added in,

Then last is steer "stuff", blend (of course living where we do we can get this anywhere, though it is nice to get the blend that has already been processed killing the bugs) .

I keep my eye out on sales of soil!! If we had the room I would buy it in bigger bulk (dump truck bulk haha). Guy and I joke saying if we ever sale and move off we will be taking our soil with us haha!

Then I mix this all up by hand! Of course changing this or that as I see fit. Some plants need more of this or bone meal,ash or what ever added. I go by what the plants are telling me. Guy has his own system, so we do have to communicate!! Guy has been growing here in the High Desert more years then I have!! His Roses have won at shows and WOW.... so I dont really touch the roses. Guy says this or that one needs this or that , so while at work I do as he says. I do like him taking care of what he sees fit. Guy does other things as well, though Guy is not here so I can not speak for him. I admit I have learned a lot about growing outdoors here in the High Desert from him!! This is not the valley where I have had most of my experience!



I take a lot of photographs of these flowers. I thought I would keep this down to a few of them!



As folks know who are connected to me somewhere, we do not use pesticides. With these Verbena we do not have a insect issue, nothing that sticks out in my mind anyhoo.

You can see the leaf of that nasty tree in the shot above. I hate that stupid tree! Though it does provide some shade, and we cut it back every year!! Perfect place for nasty insects to set up shop!! Hence cutting the tree back..... Under that tree is where I scared a wild turkey out of my garden!! Turkeys, ducks, chickens, quail etc.. can do a lot of damage to a garden!! Of course if I owned the birds they would be the best thing since sliced bread haha



This flower is a little spent , though it still has nice color!

Thank you for coming by and looking at my Verbena Flower Photography. I do have a lot more photographs of the Verbena ..... and I do not give name brand names out of soils and such for a reason. All gardeners have their own system, right -wrong is really in the results. Growing flowers , veggies etc. is not really a cookie cutter process......

Footnote, you can copy and keep any of these photographs in my blogs (Mine are watermarked), by following these directions;

Hit the PRTSC/SYSRQ button

Open up your photo softwear. Hit CTRL + V (or go to edit and paste). You should have the whole page copied into your software.

Cut out the photo.

Save.

Sometimes you have to play around with this. Where I host my photographs, Zenfolio.com, they are a professional photography place and they know all the tricks out there!! You can not even go into the page source (page source by passes most watermark software, giving access to the unwatermarked images), as you can other places and get photos!! I love this place for this for hosting my photography!

Wild Gray Hairstreak Butterfly

 Wild Gray Hairstreak Butterfly

Butterflies are fascinating creatures big and small! Watching them flutter from this place or that place is quite the hobby for many people. I am no different! On this day as I was out tending the flowers I noticed this little one fluttering here and there and thought what the hay , lets get some photographs! That I did.

This was the first shot I got. Not sure I could get all that close so kept my distance. The hairstreak in our garden like the hollyhocks, this is what is pictured here is the bud of the hollyhock of course she is laying eggs when I got there!

This series of shots was taken back in July of 2014.

I like how such a creature as a butterfly lays her eggs in a spot that the caterpillar will make the most out of the flower ie plant . I do not stop this, for it is nature and well, I like the butterflies! I like watching the process even though my flowers do come out rather eaten up at times ha

The little butterfly allowed me in pretty close without stressing her out, so I took the opportunity! I pretty much do the same thing everyday and the critters get used to me, not saying they are going to allow me to touch them or anything.... they just get used to me being out there. If say Guy was with me, critters would not go on with life for Guy is not out there everyday , or every week even though he would like to be his schedule just does not allow him to be. I am also not big on allowing strangers here. This tends to stress out the creatures that live here and to be honest stresses me out too!

If one wants to get in close to critters, one thing is.... dont put on bug killers! I never understood this from other photographers. Spray on bug killer to photograph butterflies, HELLO. Then wonder why the butterflies fly off from you. If you want to photograph larger critters, not the wisest thing to do is put on perfume down wind right?

She checked me out then went to this hollyhock flower buds. She is almost a perfect specimen dont you think?? No damage from the birds here for the birds have other things to eat other then the butterflies! These little butterflies the cats do not even mess with, they are little!! Now the swallowtail butterflies are a different story. The damage on those at times comes from cats.

Cats.... my sons cat has rules here. The cat will follow me around. However when I am busy and no more pets from me he will go lay down in the sun or shade and do what cats do. We do have the bird area in which the cat is not allowed in at all. The critters here know my rules and it is to keep everyone living stress free. If whatever does not know my rules, they learn! Stray cats get quickly shooed off the property.

You can see her doing her thing however, body language tells me in this shot she knows I am there. I am just not doing anything that would cause her any stress. I just dont like to crop my photographs or do anything to them and like to just take them off the camera so I want shots that are going to show whatever I am photographing the best I can. The critters tend to play well with me.

This is the last of the series. She was a great subject to photograph..... I just felt we both had enough. Plus my arms were getting tired haha! No I dont use my tri pod all that much..... I find it confining. What if something is going on over there and I need to act quickly or loose the shot??

The first photograph up there is a wild one I photographed in the national grasslands out side of Madras Oregon. Oh boy that is a fantastic place for butterflies!! However I am happy with the residence I have right here in my own yard !

I read a lot about critters , if you dont know that haha - I have ran across several articles about butterfly folks who raise these inside the house. Now that would be interesting? Though inside my plant room I also have frogs that moved in and they may see this as something I was very kind to offer THEM......BUTTERFLIES

You can see all of these photographs, since there are many more here , and of course I have my Butterfly album you are more then welcome to look through here

Hope you enjoyed my little write up and photographs!

Thank you for visiting with me

Coralie

Thread Wasted (waisted) Wasp

Coralie aka Mrsroadrunner | Thread Wasted Wasp

Thread Waisted Wasp

This little guy showed up here at the house. Well, females have more color then the males and I did not see another one thus it is hard to say if this is a male or female. Pretty colorful and if we just went on that I would say female?

Busy with the work that needed to be done. I have not seen this particular species here at the house before. Typically only seen them in the many canyons we have here in our part of the high desert. Though we have several canyons near by and can only assume this one came from one of them? Or heck, perhaps we now have these on the property raising young? Never felt threatened by this species so, let it be.

You can see this one was feeding on many of our flowers,going here and there. Playing with wasps is fine, I just keep in mind they can sting.... if they are going to or not is another story. I have photographed bumble bee's who acted more aggressive then this species.

I watched as this one got irritated with all the pollen and wiped the pollen from its facial area. I am sure this wasp new I was there watching it, but did not seam to mind or care?

The yellow in this marigold flower brings out the color of this thread waisted wasp.

Wasps are wasps. These are considered solitary wasps, however for being solitary I have a photographs around here of several of them together at the canyon. I will find that photograph to show you.

This photograph was actually my first experience "playing", with this wasp. Guy is my other half for you who are new to my posts. He maps out where we are going to go and has kept me from doing some pretty stupid things!! Needless to say Guy was not impressed with whom I chose to "play", with on this hike to the canyon rim when I got this shot.

Back to another one of our flowers this one went! Lets be honest, most people kill such things when they see them. I got a pretty simple rule here at the house, you dont hurt me and I wont hurt you. You hurt me and I will destroy you, your colony, your children your childrens children haha. Half way joking here but.... I do remember the stings from doing nothing more then walking into the garden from the other stinging "guests", we have here. This is unacceptable behavior in my eyes from these creatures we welcome into our garden.

This is a mud dauber flying off. This is also a thread waisted wasp. The species has several wasps within it. These mud daubers have never acted aggressive with me either, thus the photographs. I see them at the base of one of our ponds, they do not seam to like the other little pond we have for some reason?

Now this is this thread waisted wasp flying off.

Thank you for coming by and checking out my photographs of the thread waisted wasp. My conclusion from observing and photographing this species is, they are a pretty docile wasp....