The safari has taken heed of Chris, Kate and Simon and got out and looked at the local wildlife - well only that inhabiting the garden at Base Camp...well we say only...what a morning! Some epic stuff about...including this Blue Tailed Damselfly just emerged from its nymphal skin
You can see how transparent the skin is.
See the difference in wing length a few minutes makes
In the pic above the eye has an interesting pattern in it, wonder how it helps the animal see - polarises the light, cuts out glare?
Old skin - new body and up, up and away on an airborne adventure.To see a better sequence of a dragonfly emerging check out Cliff's pics
While testing newly developed wings it would be best avoid the waiting Frog
The gulls did us no favours today - we had to find our own Peregrine Falcon. It was circling at height over the water tower then dropped and glided directly overhead - nice, pity the pic is a bit on the cr*p side. It is one honest!
For some proper pics of Peregrines have a look at PT's superb shots, you might have to scroll past some other double-excellent pictues to get to them!
By lunchtime the temperature had got too much for Frank...we prefer it nearer the 30 mark.
Other inverts put on a show too. Don't know what theis hoverfly is, looks like a Carder Bee or White Tailed Bumble Bee mimic.
On the subject of bees - we saw some odd/interesting/new behaviour this morning. What looked like a small White Tailed Bumble Bee was fighting with/carrying off a Buff Tailed Bumble Bee - why? Unfortunately the action was too quick for the camera but what have we seen? Could the BTBB have been a species of Cuckoo Bee that has been rumbled, been stung and in the process of being ejected but the WTBB couldn't release the sting to dump its victim? Anyone got any theories/ideas/seen owt like it before? Certainly a new one on the safari and we thought we'd seen it all before hahaha.Where to next? 'Back' to work tomorrow = Patch 2 - seem to have recovered sufficiently from the lumbago. Work don't half ruin a good day's safari-ing!
In the meantime let us know if anyunusual behaviour has been observed in your outback recently.
3 comments:
you've got frogs! Lucky sod. My tadpoles all get eaten by the newts!
We've got frogs - you've got slow worms - think you win hands dowm!!!! What species of newt? We had one Smooth newt which Wifey named Penelope no idea why and nowt to do with wigeon. Only ever saw it twice fish probably eatemn it - they are massive!
Cheers
D
Those damselfly pictures are amazing! Amazing you can see the wing growth in a matter of minutes.
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