Facebook
X (Twitter)
Reddit
Pinterest
Tumblr
Delicious
LinkedIn
StumbleUpon
Posts Tagged: flight
Flight of the Lady Beetle
Have you ever seen a lady beetle, aka ladybird beetle, aka ladybug, take flight? Have you ever photographed it? It's early morning, Aug. 20. A lady beetle is snacking on aphids on our native milkweed plant (where the monarchs are...
A lady beetle prepares for take-off in a Vacaville pollinator garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The lady beetle unfolds its wings. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
And the lady beetle takes flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Flight of the Ladybug, The Origami Master
Ladybug, ladybug fly away homeYour house is on fire and your children are goneAll except one, and her name is AnnAnd she hid under the baking pan. So says a traditional nursery rhyme traced back to 1744 when it appeared in Tommy Thumb's Pretty...
This lady beetle, aka ladybug, appears to ponder its next move. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Which way to go? Or to go at all? Decisions, decisions. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The ladybug decides to back up a bit. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Watch me go! A ladybug unfolds its wings and is ready for take-off. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Butterfly Ballet: Gulf Fritillary in Action
Sometimes there's a method to our madness, or madness to our method. Take the silver-spangled, orange-reddish butterfly, the Gulf Fritilllary (Agraulis vanillae). We spotted a female dive-bombing her host plant, the passionflower vine (Passiflora) in...
A Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) in flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Gulf Fritillary, a silver-spangled, orangish-red butterfly, heads for its host plant, Passiflora. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A dip here, a dive there and you have a butterfly ballet (Gulf Fritillary). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Gulf Fritillary checking out the passionflower vine (Passiflora). She then laid her eggs on the tendrils and leaves. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This Gulf Fritillary stops for some flight fuel--nectar from lantana. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
And the (Bee) Beat Goes On...
It was bound to happen. A "real" honey bee flying alongside "fake" bees on a bee crossing sign. We photographed this honey bee (below) at 1/1000 of second (with a Nikon D500 and a 105mm lens with the f-stop set at 16 and ISO at 800), but honey...
A honey bee flies in formation with "fake" bees on a bee crossing sign. Bees can flap their wings around 240 times per second. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
It's almost flyover time again. Blue spike sage (Salvia uliginosa) is in the foreground. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
We Have a Winner! Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest
We have a winner! And he wasn't even looking for it. A UC Davis graduate student won the “Beer for a Butterfly” contest by collecting the first cabbage white butterfly of the year Saturday morning, Jan. 16 outside his home in West...
UC Davis student Jacob Montgomery (left) and Professor Art Shapiro toast the first flight of a cabbage white, found in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Matt Forister's graph of the first flights of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae. His graph shows that Jacob Montgomery's find was spot on.
