Waspish

I posted one of these wasp beetles a couple of weeks ago, but this is a better photo because it was taken in flat light. I love its whiskers and hairy legs, and its strange eyes that curve around the antennal insertions. I know perfectly well that what you see is a function of the way the brain processes the information it receives from your eyes, but I can't quite shed the feeling that beetles with eyes like this must see everything in half-moons, like the bokeh effects you can produce by putting a filter with a shape cut out of it over the front of a lens. Anyway, stepping around my physiologically inaccurate fantasies, I put some basic facts about wasp beetles in my previous post, so if you'd like to read more about this handsome creature, please refer back to that.

My second-favourite photo of the day, and R's favourite, is the juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker I've posted on my Facebook page. A few days ago R and I saw an adult male GSW feeding peanut pieces to one of his offspring on this feeder, but by the time I'd scuttled off and fetched a camera, Dad had tired of these ongoing parental duties and left. Tonight I walked into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and immediately saw a juvenile asleep on the feeder - or at least, clinging to it with massive claws, but motionless and with its eyes closed. Once again I rushed off for the camera, which was upstairs in my study because I'd just been uploading this morning's files onto the computer. And once again, by the time I skidded back into the kitchen, the babe (predictably) had woken up. I like the "What's going on?" mood of the image I captured just before the woodpecker flew, but it wasn't the shot I'd wanted, and therefore didn't quite trump the beetle.

In other news, a Southern Hawker emerged from our little wildlife pond overnight. It had quit the scene before R made today's first circuit of the garden to check for Odonata activity, but left tell-tale evidence behind. Of course, it would be stupid to consider sitting out there in a deck chair with a torch tonight, just in case of another dragon emergence... but... well, anyway, I talked myself out of it.

Oh, and in other other news, I bought a second mirrorless camera body this afternoon (a Canon R7 this time), and received the usual excellent service from LCE in Leamington. Happy times!