Showing posts with label bee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bee. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Mother's Day

"Happy Mother's Day!"
Native Australian Bee with White Flower

Mothers Day

australian native bee landing on a white peach blossom in springToday is Mother's Day, as you probably already know. People across the globe are honouring the dedication and value of mothers by giving gifts and other signs of appreciation. And with good reason - after all, without mothers none of us would have ever been born!

I'd like to share with you today a little bit of history about Mother's Day that you might not have heard before.
Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, whose mother had organized women’s groups to promote friendship and health, originated Mother’s Day. On May 12, 1907, she held a memorial service at her late mother’s church in Grafton, West Virginia. Within five years virtually every state was observing the day, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday. Over time, what had originally been primarily a day of honour became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts, however, and, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being.
I'd also like to say a big "Thank you" and "Happy Mother's Day" to my own mother today. I know you are reading, so thanks for all you've done!

Friday, 7 September 2007

Bumble Bees in Motion

Bumble Bee in Flight - Landing on Rocket Flower
bumble bee flying hovering landing on pak choy plant's flower - Bee hovering in the air
The First Photos from the new Fujifilm S9600!
It's amazing how the best moments for photos seem to appear when you least expect them. Yesterday I was outside as soon as it stopped raining, taking pictures of the flowers & leaves all wet and bristling with dew drops. I got a few good photos which I'll get up here soon, but just as I was leaving I noticed some bees flying around the Pak Choy plants. I snapped some photos at a relatively high shutter speed, not expecting to get much out of them as the bees were moving very quickly. But it seems I had underestimated the new camera. The photos turned out quite well, even after I digitally cropped them to less than half their original size.

I've included two of the best bee photos here. The first one (above) shows a bee hovering in the air mid-flight, about to land on a yellow Pak Choy Flower. You can actually see the bee's wings as they flap through the air at top speed.

In the second photo (below) the bee has landed and is sucking the pollen from the flower. Notice the large yellow pollen sac at the middle of the bee's body. Again, the yellow flowers are from a Pak Choy plant.

Bumble Bee Feeding - Resting on Flower
bumble bee sucking sitting resting on yellow pak choy flower - Bee on flower
So far my experiences with the Fujifilm S9600 have shown it to be well worth the money. It certainly has exceptional macro capabilities, and it's great to have full manual control over the shutter speed and aperture settings. I'm looking forward to lot's more great photos in the months to come, and I hope you too can share in the enjoyment of this "wonderland of nature".

Coming up: After the Rain....

These photos taken with the Fujifilm S9600 camera.
Shutter speed 1/399, F5.7 (#1) & f7.2 (#2), ISO 200

Related Photos:
Bee landing on Lavender Flower
Life on a smaller scale [Mushrooms in Grass]
Close-up of yellow Pak Choy Flowers

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