Saturday 18 June 2011

Feeding, hunting, resting, mating...

Around the summer solstice, the Philadelphus or mock orange blossoms. In addition to its lovely scent, its broad, cup-like white flowers make a beautiful background for insect photography. It is just fitting that insects love these flowers too. The following photos were taken yesterday and today.
Small spiders such as this crab spider (above) sit on the flowers to ambush flying insects attracted to them. Small garden spiders build their webs also amongst the blossom.
A fly resting
Carpet beetle (Anthrenus sp.) feeding on pollen
Greenbottle (Lucilia sp)
Bumblebees often feed on the blossom. Here, Bombus terrestris.
A mating pair of ichneumon wasps
A small bee (Hylaeus?) enjoying the pollen

4 comments:

lotusleaf said...

Superb macro shots!

Africa Gomez said...

Thank you Lotusleaf and thank you for following!

Antje said...

This is such a cool series! Isn't it amazing what's going on on one single flower? For some, this is their entire world.

Africa Gomez said...

Thank you Antje. You are right and I miss a few characters, the hoverflies weren't around for once and the photogenic red-tailed bumblebee was missing too.