Tawny Mining Bee

Tiny Tuesday: Tawny Mining Bee

Although much milder than it has been recently it is also quite windy today, with occasional sunny intervals.  So you will appreciate that these are not ideal conditions for Tiny Tuesday -  trying to take macro pictures of insects takes a degree of care anyway, but add in moving vegetation and changing light and it becomes a whole new world of pain.

I was however delighted that my second visit to the garden today actually delivered some gold in the form of two bees that are new to me.

I have to put my hand up and confess that, had it not been for JDO's blip of one of these just the other day, I would not have been able to tell you that this is female Adreana fulva, or the Tawny Mining Bee as it is more commonly known.  Jill's knowledge of insects in general and bees in particular never ceases to impress.

On a leaf close to the Adreana there was a little hoverfly.  I decided to go for the bee first and hope that the hoverfly would still be there when I had finished.  Sadly the fly had disappeared by the time I got around to it.  But it was definitely the right decision as I'm rather pleased with the bee shot.

I'm not at all sure, but I think that the extra might be the male of same bee species. I'm much less pleased with this shot.  When approaching an insect I generally take a shot once it is in focus, just to ensure that I have something to use to help with identification later.  Then I try for a more composed image.  Unfortunately I only got the one shot of the little bee on the euphorbia as it didn't want to hang about, and its not really quite at the right angle to tell whether or not the bee has the protruding jaws of the male Tawny Mining Bee - so I failed in both the identification and composition elements of the task :-(

I hope you've had fun trying to find something small to photograph today.  I will be catching up on your Tiny Tuesday blips during the course of the next few days and will update this page with the results once I have done so.

TINY TUESDAY RESULTS:


There were 72 entries for Tiny Tuesday this week.  I thought I had got them all on Wednesday night when I began my review, but a few have sneaked in under the wire since then.  As ever, reviewing all your wonderful entries and then deciding on just 5 favourites is a next to impossible task if you allow yourself to be at all indecisive.  There were some very tough choices to make and a number of images I really, really, liked but ultimately I have only 5 favourites to give out and so without further ado they go to:

(In no particular order of merit)

Trisharooni - Not So Tiny  If you don't like spiders you might want to skip looking at this one, but if you can bring yourself to overcome that fear then check out this fabulously detailed shot of a monster spider - highly recommended.

Steveng - Small Blue(ish)  There were a number of excellent flower macros which made it difficult to review and choose from - but I do like the beautiful colours and details of this tiny Forget Me Not - definitely an antidote to anyone who was unsettled by the previous spider shot :-)

Stujphoto - Plastic Tie Macro.  Every now and again you get a macro of something familiar that it you don't immediately recognise at macro scale.  So the plastic tie in this shot looks as though its made from cast iron. 

JDO - Fruit Course.  Jill's excellent nature and wildlife photography is no doubt deservedly well known to many of you already.  Her shot of a Tawny Mining Bee is delightful.

Stevvi - Daffodil.  This is something different.  Self-confessedly not a fan of flower photography Stevvi still managed to deliver a tour de force with his artfully lit and processed decaying daffodil.