I'll be straight with you - I didn't see any. It was however my intent as I set out for a local pond and boggy spot I know. I only had a couple of hours due to a busy weekend and I saw too many things to distract me on the way. I heard it said once that life is about the journey not the destination. Sound advice given the destination of life. All the photographs here were taken within a few yards alongside the path. One of the good things about macro photography is that a single footstep can take you pass many worlds.
My first photographic victim was a Red Clover. I love taking pictures of common plants - I think they are more of a challenge. Things you see everyday you tend not to appreciate. Part of photography is to record, a bigger part is to get people to see anew. As such I did not want a straight shot. I decided on impressionistic abstract sort of approach. My old art teacher was big on this; "an image should evoke, evoke my boy!". His artwork was so abstract it made you feel a little queasy, and he smoked a lot of weed. I treated this weed of mine to a stupidly shallow depth of field, focused on the ends of the flower and filled the frame. I like the effect but I do think it could be improved.
Second victim was the common nettle. I found three in flower all lined up and back lit to boot. All I had to do was line them up in the frame and press the button. This plant is a rather useful addition to any woodland edge or waste ground. It is a food plant for several species of butterfly and many other insects give a good chew on it as well. Even us humans have made use of it as a green vegetable, to make tea, twine and as a fabric dye. If you have some in your garden treasure it. If your worried about young kids remember that they tend to touch it just the once!
Common vetch was up next, but not the flower. This particular plant was host to a small colony of aphids. Aphids, or greenfly, are best thought of as plant fleas. Like fleas they are true bugs and feed on fluids. In the case of aphids it is the sugary sap made by the plant in the leaves and transported down the stem. The colony was still small but growing, one was even giving birth as I photographed. All the little aphids here were produced parthogentically. This means they are clones of the mother, no sex involved. This allows numbers to build up very fast, as I am sure every gardener is aware. The baby being born might already be pregnant itself. The downside to this method of reproduction is a lack of variety, leaving them wide open to disease. Males are produced later in the season and sexual reproduction helps shuffle the genes around.
This particular group was being "farmed" by ants. Ants will move aphids around from plant to plant, they do this for honeydew. Honeydew is the aphids waste product, and due to its diet, is mainly sugar. The aphid simply cannot absorb all the sugar it gets from the plant! The ants carry this stick sweet substance away as an excellent food source. By the look of it this colony was started by the two matriarchs at the bottom, which, more than likely, were transported here by ants. Looking at the sizes would also suggest they started further up and have moved down the stem throwing babies out the back.
Remember to check out my flickr photostream for larger images! Or just click the captions. Right click and ask fo a new tab or window if you want to come back here easily.
Photos superb, congratulations!!!!!!!!
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