Grasshopper large

This month has been a successful blip month for me. I have posted eleven different types of creature and about half of my blips have been new creatures to my journal, so I am pleased that I am able to maintain some diversity. Also a lot of frustrating moments, when I have shots that deserve to be blipped but have to be sidelined for a rare shot or more spectacular. It just seems such a shame sometimes.

Yes I could use folio, but folio frustrates me with the 'one at a time' uploading procedure and tiny display, otherwise I would use it more, I think everyone would use it more.

I have tried to be mindful of those that do not like arachnid shots. Picking from the thumbnail page is not so bad, but when you select the comment to reply, it takes you straight to the full size image. I wish there was some way of protecting you, like a five second warning overlay to give you a chance to move on. Perhaps the arachnophobics could lobby central for something. In the mean time, I would be happy to assemble a group of email addresses and send out a mass email notification. My addy is on my bio page. Emails always welcome.

I decided to close the month off with a large hopper blip. I find the spiky legs are very interesting. The hopper had some stiff competition from two dragon shots and two nice butterfly shots, one of them new but not quite nailed.

Often there is confusion as to whether you are looking at a grasshopper or a cricket. The main difference is in the antennae, the grasshopper has short, stubby antennae, much shorter than the length of it's body. The cricket has very long antennae, often several times longer than it's body. This makes crickets tedious to blip, as I want to show body detail with a close crop, but the antennae force the body down into the corner of the frame. It would be wrong to crop the antennae out, as that is one of the main features of this creature.

Work has been done on the field and a large portion of my blipping grounds has been lost to the grass strimmer. The mimosa bushes are still there, but it may be time to move on very soon to a new location.

Dave