A photo series of flowers and invertebrates in my garden
I have really been enjoying photography lately, and have made the habit of bringing my camera with me every time I go outside. So today I want to share a few more photos I took yesterday, and hopefully my science post will be ready for posting later tonight.
The tulips are finally blossoming, and there are few things that are as nice as having a full flower bed of tulips in front of my house. Most are still not as open as these ones, but they will soon get there.
The Viola tricolor var. hortensis are still going strong and enjoying the bright summer sun we got these days. As you can see I also found some Viola tricolor in my garden, which are the original, wild plant that eventually were artificially evolved to be the common pansy we keep in our gardens. As you can see they resemble each other a lot, but they are still very different.
The wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) flowers are also flowering now, but there are still some weeks until they will produce an edible strawberry.
This final flower photo is from Prunus domestica ssp. intermedia, a cultivar of the plum. This tree will be producing Victoria plums (Prunus 'Victoria') in the autumn, so I'm really looking forward to collecting and eating these once they are ripe! Still a long way until we get there though.
I also found some insects
As I have said before, I'm terrible at insect identification, so let me know if you have any idea what species these could be!
This beetle (?) was just chilling on my house wall, just over my tulips, and was more than happy to pose for a few photos. I think I managed to capture a lot of details about his physiology, so it should probably be doable to identify him if I had any clue where to begin the search.
I assume that this is a type of wasp or something, but it seems unlikely that anyone can find the species just from this photo. However, I don't see a visible stringer, so it might not be a stinging wasp.
This guy was collecting nectar from a dandelion (Taraxacum sp.), and I'm fairly certain that it is a red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius). This is the most likely species, but it might also be a B. wurfleini, although I doubt it.
And finally: a snail. It's difficult to identify some species just by the shell, but I assume it's a white-lipped snail (Cepaea hortensis), just because this is the species that is commonly found in gardens.
Thanks for stopping by
Thanks for checking out my post and seeing my photos. I hope you enjoyed them!
Mange vakre bilete denne gongen ôg @Valth
Heilt sidan eg var liten gut har eg synst at tulipanar var særleg vakre blomar, store og fine. Dei raude og gule variantane likar eg særleg godt. Eg minnest ôg at fiolar var fine. Klarte me å finna dei som var blå og kvite, var me heldige for dei var dei finaste. Dei kalla me Dag og Natt fiol. (Viola tricolor).
Den foredla varianten kallar me stemorsblom. Den vanlegaste fiolen er Skogfiol(Viola riviniana) og er faktist ein av dei vanlegaste vårblomane våre.
Billa du har bilete av må etter mitt syn vera ei snutebille. Men snutebillene tel om lag 60 000 artar og i Norge er det funne om lag 300 artar, så det er ikkje heilt enkelt å slå fast kva art dette er.
Derimot meiner eg at insektet som er fotografert, må vera ei honningbie. Frå mai av er dei heilt vanlege å sjå. Den mest vanlege i Norge er den brune bia.
Den er både hardfør og ein god honningsamlar.
I ungdommen heldt eg bier i nokre år slik at eg plar vera stø til å skilja bier frå veps.
Bia som er avbilda, er den brune bie (Apis mellifera mellifera) Eit par andre artar som har vore i bruk i birøkt i Norge, er krainer bie (Apis mellifera carnica) og italiener bie (Apis mellifera ligustica) som er gulaktig på bakkroppen og som folk flest kanskje ville kalla ein veps.
Med vennleg helsing
@Siggjo
Takk for en god og utfyllende kommentar, @siggjo!
Artig at dere bruker navnet dag og nattfiol for samme planten som jeg har lært å kalle stemorsblomst. Skogfiol er også en flott blomst, og jeg kom faktisk over en hel haug av dem da jeg var ute på tur i går, så disse har også dukket opp allerede.
Det har du nok rett i! Jeg søkte litt rundt på nettet etter disse, og det kan kanskje se ut som en type skogsnutebille, og kanskje til og med en gransnutebille (Hylobius abietis). Nå er jeg veldig dårlig på å identifisere insekter, men den ser etter min mening kliss lik ut som den på bildet hos FHI. Det er jo også et par arter som visstnok er veldig like på gransnutebille, så jeg skal ikke si noe sikkert, selv om de ser veldig like ut.
Takk for identifisering! Når jeg tenker meg om er det flere som har bikuber ganske i nærheten, så det er kanskje en av arbeiderene derfra. Nå har jeg lest meg litt opp på forskjellene mellom bier og veps, og det ser ut som en grei måte å skille dem på er ved å se om de har pels eller ikke.
Hilsen @valth
I don't think I'm going too much out on a limb to say that's a European honey bee (Apis mellifera). And the beetle is some kind of weevil, from the Curculionidae family. I may not know exactly what kind it is, but rest assured it's destroying something we want, lol. The cuculio's are such pests on so many crops!
Thanks for the identifications! I've gotten another person who said it was a European honey bee (Apis mellifera) as well, so I think it's time to conclude that this is correct.
I also got another person suggestion it to be a snout beetle (Curculionidae), and after some searching I believe it might be a Hylobius abietis, but there are apparently 3-4 species that look almost identical, so it's impossible to say for sure.
The one you think is a wasp actually looks like some form of honeybee though I cannot be sure which species exactly. You were close though, as bees and wasps are two of the three main branches of Hymenoptera (the third being ants of course!)
A tip for identifying hymenopterans: ants are ants (that's easy haha), bees (such as bumblebees and honeybees) tend to be hairier than wasps, which usually have either more striking, contrasting, or vivid colorings than bees (probably because they are generally more dangerous).
:)
I'm glad I can share my knowledge to one who also shares his knowledge and experience(s)
Thanks for the tip! You are right, and I've gotten a few people tell me that it's a European honey bee (Apis mellifera). But you're tip for identification are great, and I will use this to not mix up bees and wasps in the future.
Tulips are amazing. It will become more awesome when you have all beds of tulips blossom like these. Flowers and greenery add colors to life.It gives you calmness. Hopefully you will enjoy strawberry fruit soon. About insect.I don't know the name of insect, but it looks like scary. Although i don't know it's harmful for people as mostly scary looks things don't harm people. You recalled my childhood days when we used to play in fields and met these species. keep sharing @valth
Yeah, flowers and plants are really calming to have all around me in the garden. And it will be great when the strawberries are ready, but it's a little while to wait still.
We don't really have any dangerous insects here in Norway, so I'm not worries that it will harm me. It might not be that nice towards the garden plants though.
I loved tulips. ...they look great...
I myself planted an orange and a lemon plant in my garden on Earth Day. ...lets hope they survive and I may enjoy fresh home grown lemons this summer...
It will take 2 summers for orange to bear fruit but I can wait:)
Nothing matches the home grown fruits and vegetables. ...
we asians are pretty lucky in this way, long summers and fertile land makes the job way easier....
All you have to do is take care of the cultivation for first few weeks and then the supporting weather takes care of the rest.
If by any chance one lives near a river then there is even no need for fertilizer.....
That's exciting! Fruit trees are really nice to have, especially when they have grown to produce a decent amount of fruit every year.
Hehe, I'm a bit jealous of the climate in your parts of the world. Here we only have 3-4 months where we can grow things, and then it's a hassle to get things to survive during the winter!
Yeah, warmer weather does have its perks....
I will share with you the photos of orange, lemon and papaya plants that I planted this earth day. They are growing fast:)
That's great; I'm looking forward to seeing them!
Fantabulous photography sir😍😍😍😍. i remember when you did post about gardening when there is no spring but still snow everywhere and now your garden presenting a picture of beauty 😍😍😍😍
Thank you. Yes, it's such a huge change from when it was covered in snow and ice only two months ago!
Aww, I love these collections of close-ups of plants and little animals :) Great shots, I call these National Geographic style :) Btw looks like spring is finally in full swing up there in the north too ;) Have a good Sunday @valth! Greetings from sunny Czech Republic.
Thank you, @phortun! Yeah, it almost feels like we even skipped spring and went straight to summer this year. It's great to see all the flowers pop up already though :)
Very nice, makes me miss having my own garden. What model of camera are you using?
It's great to have a garden, but also very time-consuming.
I'm using a Nikon D40, a cheap 10-year old DSLR with the default lens. It's pretty much the cheapest starter DSLR camera you can find ;)
Hey, it blows the camera on my 7 year old phone out of the water, haha. I might pick up one for cheap myself to photograph tadpoles if I decide to raise another batch again after this one.
Hehe, that it does. It's a huge different between a DSLR and a digital phone camera in my opinion, and even the cheap DSLR cameras for $100-$150 is a huge improvement.
How does your's tend to handle indoor situations? I'm constantly amazed by what my phone considers 'low light.' My GoPro's better with indoor lighting conditions but just doesn't take as sharp still images.
It handles it a lot better than phone cameras at least, but it uses pretty low shutter speed when it's little light, so I need to be very steady with it to get non-blurry photos. But it works great during daytime!
wow what a beautifull pi c u share mind blowing this is called nature at its best
Thanks, I'm glad you liked the photos :)
Wow your garden is filled with great beauties of nature.a healthy garden
Yeah, there's a lot of different stuff here :)