Thursday 22 July 2010

Day 192: Hoverfly


I went out with the intention of photographing the lovely rose climbing up the arch near the bottom of the garden, but as so often happens I went off this idea when I actually tried it because it wouldn't come out right!  I wandered into the greenhouse, which is pretty much a green jungle at the moment, to see how the tomatoes are getting on.  I can't wait until they ripen because warm greenhouse tomatoes are the best.  We have cherry tomatoes of several varieties I believe, peppers, chillies and cucumbers in there.  There are a lot of flowers and I noticed some beautiful hoverflies going amongst them with shiny wings catching the sun, and their striking black and yellow patterned bodies.  It took me a while standing in there, baking despite the door and window being open, before I managed to get any sharp shots of them but eventually, once the sun had gone behind a cloud I did.  This of course meant my exposure was wrong and it was too dark - argh!  So I waited again, and the greenhouse seemed to have emptied of hoverflies.  After a few minutes I noticed one sitting quietly on a pepper flower, which is rather uncharacteristic since they seem to never stop and barely land for seconds most of the time, but it stayed put and I got my photos.  It's not as bright and shiny as I might like, and there's a hint of fuzziness on the left wing, but it's pretty good so I'm happy :-)  And have you ever noticed that they have maroon eyes and a sort of shiny dark gold back before?  I certainly haven't!

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