Iris Bug III
Another in my mini-series showing the iris dwellers and users. Here we see some tiny bug on the petal of a dewy Iris. I don’t know what kind of insect this is, but it sure is small. I like how the bug makes the petal seem vast, even though one can see some of the petal’s cellular structure.
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Iris Bug II
Another in the series from an iris patch in my back garden and also part of the mini-series showing the iris dwellers and users. This is much smaller than a typical lady bug (lady bird) and thus is most likely a carpet beetle. The museum conservator in my life exclaims at what such a pest they are. In fact, at her museum, which regularly rents areas out for receptions and dinners, it is required that the incoming bouquets of flowers be checked for pests, and in particular these little creatures. If seen, then the flowers are not allowed in.
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Ants Sipping Iris Nectar – Time Lapse
This macro time-lapse of ants sipping nectar from the stem of an Iris flower shows the value of this method. It is part of my Iris series, and the sub-series Iris Bugs. When I set this shot up all I knew was the ants seemed to come and go from this part of the plant quite often. It was only when I viewed the time-lapse series did I see that the ants were drinking from little drops that are regularly emitting from the stem of this flower. If you look at the left hand side, where it is in focus, you can see the drop forming over and over – in fact in this video, it forms 46 times in 32 minutes, and is sipped 45 times. But the one on the left is not the only one; if you watch carefully you can see that the ants are cleaning up drops of water in a chain all the way around the stem at about the same height – mostly in the closer areas that are out of focus. The photo above illustrates two of the droplet locations.
To view the video click on the image below.
I find that viewing it at high-resolution in WordPress runs a bit rough and recommend you move over to YouTube and watch if full screen at high-resolution.
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Old Labs
More from the Friday Harbor laboratory, this time shots of some of the old labs, which are strung along the waterfront. The first shot is from this year, the others are all 2012. With the exception of this year’s shot, they were all jpegs, and so it was interesting to see what I could pull from those pictures with Lightroom and Topaz Clarity. As it turned out quite a lot, but definitely RAW is the way to go for this kind of processing, so much more that can be done without artifacts like the banding in the sky visible in a couple of these pictures.
Lab Tanks
More from the Friday Harbor laboratory. This shot is in the main lab, and these tanks were freshly cleaned out for Open House weekend. I have seen them with all manner of beasts in them – whatever is being studied. Sharks were a common inhabitant when I was young, but not a place where you can keep the Houdini of the ocean, octopuses. You have to wonder why the need a quarantine room, I am supposing some kind of living organism studied that could not get loose in this environment, or a bacterial agent useful in some experiment that had to be handled carefully. Or, more likely a cold cupboard for wide-mouthed bottles of beer.
Hummingbird Clarity
While at Friday Harbor the hummingbirds were a centre of attention at the cabin. The feeder required filling 4 times a day, and there were often 4 birds feeding at once, with others waiting nearby. It made for a lot of displaying and other territorial behaviour. Interesting, and beautiful. I had processed these images in Lightroom 4, but went back to them in Topaz Clarity – the gallery below shows both versions, while the main body of the post has only the Clarity versions.
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