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Thursday, March 08, 2012

A photo a day. Feb 26th to Feb 29th ( leap year)


Leaping to the end of Feb and looking for something more uncommon here are photos of the sky,the insect world, my favorite subject at present - lichens,  and drama in the pond.


 Another chance find in the green house. It has a black face and the clumps of bristles are in a regular pattern growing out of a series of black bands on the body of the caterpillar. Its about 2 cm long. I will try to get an ident.  Feb 26th






The moon was was making an interesting picture with Venus close by on a perfectly clear sky.
 Feb 27th




I've found about five different lichens so far and here are two of them.  The yellow form could be Xanthoria parietina. Feb 28th



Now this is a big scoop for me. Just by chance I was peering into our pond knowing that in the last two weeks or so the water boatmen ( Notanecta glauca Notonectidae ) and other beetles had started moving around and right in front of me this water boatman was unusually remaining in the same place as I peered down at it. They usually dive of swim away as soon as I get near the pond. Its quite clear that it has caught a smaller insect which was still moving as I took the photo from above. It did eventually swim out towards the middle of the pond and dissapeared.  Although the photo is not very good I am still very pleased to record this action in the pond. Feb 29th