Millipede

My mate, Geoff is back in town. He has just bought a bike and wanted to go for a ride with me, to try to get used to it. I explained about blip and that I needed to pick up some pics on route and he was OK with that. I have explained before that it was Geoff who got me started on the insect thing when he was toying with the idea of a butterfly collection. That didn't happen, but the idea was planted.

I took him to my normal blip site, the stream. I gave a running commentary on what we were seeing, the funny thing being that he was the one who used to give me the commentary when I first arrived in Bandung. It soon became obvious that the slow progress of a Vman safari was a struggle, even though I was actually moving it along. So blipless, we returned to the bikes and headed out to the stream location, about ten miles on.

This is a tourist attraction for the city dwellers, giving them a taste of fresh air after the pollution of the city. No emission restrictions here! Geoff was impressed with the location and probably bring Rena and the kids here for a day out and picnic.

The rainy season had raised the water levels and unfortunately part of the path was submerged in sloppy mud. I was not thrilled of the hike through the mud, but at least I had a towel with me for such occasions, but Geoff's designer suede loafers were definitely not conducive to the environment, so we called the safari off until another day.

On the walk back to the bikes, Geoff found this millipede, potentially rescuing my blip day. This is only the second millipede that I have seen since joining blip and I regret not blipping the first one, from about ten months ago.

I remembered that photographing in their natural environment was a dead loss, so found a piece of slate and set to. These critters are slow, but in constant motion and incredibly difficult to photograph, macro and movement definitely do not mix. I wanted to show you the fascinating leg movement, but that will have to wait until next time.

This image shows the complexity of the creature. It curls up as a defense strategy, but opens up again after twenty seconds or so. This was quite a small specimen of two inches length, a local guy who was watching the action said that he has seen them ten inches long. I will be keeping my eyes out for one of those in future.

Dave