When my family got involved in the regeneration of our local woodland, I never imagined that one of our tasks would be to photograph the insects in that space. My True Love (TL) needed little encouragement as he already had an interest in insects. Suffice to say, he has found it extraordinarily difficult to get these small creatures in focus. The wind seems to blow constantly and the insects make haste to avoid being eaten or to eat others. Kudos to all the insect photographers out there. I’m not one of them. You have to take lots of photos to get one or two in focus, at least my TL does on his particular camera. Anyway, today I am featuring a few of the photos my TL has taken over the last six months. Let’s get started.
Bug eyes.

What do you think? Spider egg sacs?


Beetles seem to be the favourite prey of many insects, although to be strictly accurate, spiders are not insects.

Apparently the Cerceris, or digger, wasp likes beetles too. My TL is lucky enough just to get the photo of the wasp, so no beetles were eaten in this photo. Cute, don’t you think?

My TL also took some photos of cuckoos. How about this tiny cuckoo wasp? It is only about 4-5mm long and super fast.

And a Chequered cuckoo bee. Seriously, there is such a thing.

Halictad bees are also tiny. At least, these ones are. The first one has just emerged from a tiny Wahlenbergia, our native bluebell, and the second is roosting in some grass.


My TL tried to take some photos of meat ants launching their queens. But it was a bit hard to get them in focus. I was hollering in the background because the ants were biting me as they were scrambling up my jeans. Definitely had ants in me pants. We had to move away quickly. I thought I would have to drop my dacks on the track to get them out. Just imagine if other walkers had came across a man doing the same thing? He probably would have got into some serious trouble for being a flasher. Anyway, back to the photos – a meat ant pushing a lump of dirt downhill.

Speaking of beetles being eaten alive …. We know ants gotta eat, but my TL nevertheless rescued this beetle. The ants would not let that poor beetle go. My TL had a devil of a job freeing it. You have got to be joking if you think I am going anywhere near those ants.

Well, I can’t leave you traumatised so I will finish off with this lovely photo of a Yellow Admiral butterfly on a scribbly gum.

Thank you to Donna from Wind Kisses for coming up with this theme. It is probably the only subject that I can talk a lot about but don’t have to do any of the work to bring the images to you.
Now bugger off (Aussie slang for “Off you go.” No offense intended.)
Kind Regards.
Tracy.