outdoor photography

Lavinia sp. Orbweaver A couple weeks ago I visited the wildlife drive at Lake Apopka. I decided to use my macro lens and see if I could go my whole time just photographing insects and spiders. I made it all the way until the sod fields near the end of the drive, when I had to put my 400 mm lens back on. Black and Yellow Argiope I saw two species of spiders, a Black and Yellow Argiope and a Larinia species orbweaver. These were probably the most challenging to photograph. The Lavinia sp. was pretty small, and it had become quite windy, so just getting a sharp photo was a bit of a challenge. I photographed two odes, a Rambur's Forktail and an Eastern Amberwing. Rambur's Forktail Eastern Amberwing I also had some fun photos of butterflies and moths, in particular, a Southern Skipperling, a Fiery Skipper, and a Yellow-collared Scape Moth. The scape moth was probably the most fun find of the morning for me. Yellow-collared Scape Moth Fiery Skipper ...

Southern Skipperling On April 17th, I visited Marl Bed Flats, and I did something I haven't done in years. I took my 180 mm macro lens and not my 400 mm telephoto lens. My bet was that I wouldn't see any birds that needed photographing but I would see bugs that needed photographing. Thankfully, I was right. I walked out to Lake Jesup looking for birds, and walked back looking for bugs. There were lots of butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies that took a good deal of my attention. I got my first presentable photos of a Southern Skipperling and my first ever photos of a Big Bluet. Here are the dragonflies and damselflies I'd seen. Rambur's Forktail Big Bluet Four-spotted Pennant Eastern Amberwing Here are some more of the butterflies I saw.  Including the Southern Skipperling above, I only saw three species, though there were several of each, especially Little Yellows. Fiery Skipper Little Yellow

Swarthy Skipper About a week ago I shared the fun experience I had with Jeff Cagle at Tosohatchee WMA. We found about 30 butterflies, and more than half of them were new to me. Especially the skippers. I'm finding out that skippers can be extraordinarily difficult to identify. Some of them are like the empids of the butterfly world. Perhaps I'll feel differently once I get to know them more, but right now, that's how I feel. Twin-spot Skipper But skippers are kind of fun as well, and their small size makes them somewhat of a challenge to photograph. But often they don't mind me getting close to them if I move slowly enough, and that left me with some half-way decent photos of these guys. And that makes for some exciting time. Horace's Duskywing Skipper Confused Cloudywing With my colorblind eyes, I think of these skippers in groups of "orange" and "brown." The orange ones can be really hard to tell apart from each other, ...