The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Macro prompt was rather well timed. I have spent part of the winter digitising my slide archives that include hundreds of macro images.
A Ruby-tailed Wasp. Given that the ruby red tail is usually covered by the wings a more appropriate name would be an Emerald-bodied Wasp.
Fly Agaric fungi cap detail.
A portrait of a Common Quaker Moth.
Spines on a Teasel seed head in the autumn.
This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge: Up close and personal.
I had a few ideas for the challenge and had decided on one until I started selecting photos. After picking the first shot I was planning on using I went in a different direction.
Here are three up close and personal shots of nature subjects taken in Cheshire, England in the 1980s. In one of those strange coincidences, after picking them I realised that they all had Common in their common English names.
First, a bird. A portrait of a male Common Blackbird. I had been photographing a plant species in a ditch when this male decided to check out what the human was up to. As I’m in a ditch the bird is looking down at me.
Second, an insect. A portrait of a Common Quaker Moth taken with a high magnification macro lens.
Third, an amphibian. A close up of a Common Frog in a garden pond in Cheshire, England. Most of the frogs eye is below the surface of the water. Taken with a high magnification macro lens and possibly one of the occasions when the camera body and/or lens ended up being dipped in the water.
