You Can Call Me "Bug Girl"

Since starting my journey in photography, I have to admit to a fascination with bugs.  Not like any bugs and not bugs in my house or bugs touching my body but taking pictures of bugs.

It really started with the dragonflies.  While living in Florida, I had close encounters of the dragon kind every day and I love them.  OK - I am obsessed with them.  Folks in my photo groups call me the Dragonfly Whisperer although I am fairly certain that the dragonflies would concur with Dragonfly Stalker.

My obsession does not just extend to stalking dragonflies or running after bugs in the wild, but I also began to read about them, especially dragonflies.  I knew it was bad when I would wax enthusiastic at family dinners about species and experiences during my photographic journeys, adding in all the neat new facts that I had uncovered about bug behavior.  Blank stares and even my Mom asking me if I needed to see a therapist were the results.

 
The idea of going out to stalk dragonflies and other various denizens of the buggy kingdoms has gotten me out of bed at dawn, led me into standing in swamps motionless for 20 minutes to get a shot and hanging upside down the side of a canal to inspect a cocoon.  Weird, right?

In my defense, I have documented over 26 types of dragonflies, identified invasive species harmful to the Florida ecosystem, submitted to various scientific and scientific groups and  gotten a few darn cool photos along the way.  I even realized that my serious and debilitating arachnophobia could be controlled if I breathed and looked through the lens.  I do not wax poetic about spider behavior ... you are safe.

But the real reason that I am so excited about bugs ... beside the darn cool photos is that they saved my life.  Two years ago, I had just returned from London.  My husband and I had separated.  I had just been laid off.  I hated Florida.  The economy had made finding a job in my industry virtually impossible.  I was depressed and then one evening during a walk, I sat down in a field of dragonflies.  I was entranced and that was the first of months of daily walks.  Instead of going to bed and staying there (which is what I wanted to do), I went outside, took photos, did research and formed awesome networks on Flickr.  

 
I am through the bad patch now but my love of photography and capturing all the wonderful and weird things around us, no matter how small, has definitely stuck.  So, yes, you can call me Bug Girl.  or the Dragonfly Whisperer/Stalker, or as one friend dubbed me - the Reigning Queen of the Dragonfly Nerds on flickr.  But the bugs and I know ... I owe them.

   

All Photos Are Mine so Please Respect Copyright ... or the bugs will get you ... seriously.  

Lifespan of a Dragonfly

I was looking at this picture of one of the dragonflies that I took a picture of:

dragonfly and friend

2 comments

and his wings seem a bit worse for wear and it was mentioned that the lifespan of a dragonfly is only 14 days so I found this:
"The lifespan of a dragonfly comprises of two-stages. After breeding the female dragonfly will deposit her eggs under or onto aquatic vegetation. Once the eggs have hatched the first stage in the lifestyle of a dragonfly can begin. This stage of a dragonfly's lifestyle is as an aquatic larvae, or 'nymph'. This stage will generally last between one and three years, during which time the larvae will act as a voracious predator of other insect larvae, tadpole and even small fish. Most other insect species, including moths and butterflies, go through a pupal stage before emerging as adults, however, dragonflies do not pupate. Instead the larval form will emerge from its aquatic environment and hang from the bank or a stem. From this position it will and bask in the warmth of the sunlight and undergo metamorphosis into its adult form. Once the larva's transformation is complete, the newly emerged adult will have to wait several hours before its wings dry out and become firm enough to fly. This is a critical time in the life cycle of the dragonfly as it is exposed to predation, which may even come from dragonfly larvae themselves. However, once the adult is able to fly it becomes once more a voracious predator, displaying its wonderful metallic armor. As an adult, its quarry will be flying insects and some of the larger dragonfly species may even predate its cousin the damsel fly.
Life as an adult sadly is a glorious burst, just long enough to reproduce. The adult dragonfly will not live beyond several months, depending on the quality of the weather. Generally speaking, if the weather is dry and warm then the adult may live as long as six months. However, in the short, and sometimes not so sweet summer of the British Isles, adults will tend not to live for longer than several weeks. If your eyes are keenly tuned to the air above rivers, lakes and ponds, you may just be fortunate enough to see a beautiful dragonfly dancing and darting, it is a truly marvelous sight indeed."

I am going to poke around some more about the loss of the wings - maybe another insect took a bite...anyways just for informational purposes...

on my walk today I saw ...

BUGS!  and LIZARDS!  and (dear gods) SPIDERS! and BUTTERFLIES! 

The grass was cut around the complex which caused little clouds of gnats to be displaced which in turn caused HORDES of dragonflies to fly around like maniacs!  They never landed though as they were too busy dive bombing the clouds and eating them I assume.  It was pretty cool to see all the dragonflies - all different from the ones I have seen before and all colors - but I will have to wait til evening and they are full to take some pics, I hope.

I walked down to see my alien plants and ... they were almost gone!  very quick cycle.  I emailed the research site and offered them my pics and the head of the research said to send them along to put on their site so that was pretty neat and they are going to add Florida as a location.

So here are a few...I was only out for about 30 min due to the heat and at one point, I was following the butterfly and ended up in a patch of spiders....oh MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD...panic - snapped a few and only one came out as I was carefully backing out of the area - there were about 20 all hanging out - I almost passed out.  but got one creepy crawly...sigh.

just pretty

5 comments

a new dragonfly!

3 comments

a new lizard!

7 comments

I almost passed out

5 comments