Tag Archives: macro photography

Photo of the Week – January 28, 2011

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We have a stream that runs through our Platte River Prairies that is strongly groundwater fed.  The relatively warm groundwater inputs help to keep the stream from completely freezing over.  On the day I took this photograph there was a margin of ice along the bank of the stream, but the majority of the stream was still open flowing water.

Ice patterns on the edges of a stream - The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies

I was drawn to this particular patch of ice because of the layered patterns within it.  The more I stare at it, the more patterns and pictures emerge.

Photo of the Week – January 21, 2010

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Bumblebees are fascinating creatures.  Like honey bees, they are social insects that split foraging and brood rearing chores between groups of workers.  However, unlike their non-native cousins, bumblebee colonies die off at the end of the year, leaving only a few fertile females to overwinter.  Those females emerge from hibernation in the spring, find a suitable nesting site, and begin building up a new colony of bumblebees that can reach several hundred individuals in size – all within a single season.

This bumblebee kept lifting and lowering its leg as I photographed it. The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

This particular bumblebee was sitting on a rosinweed flower in a dew-covered prairie one morning.  As I began photographing it, it started lifting and lowering one of its legs.  I have no idea why it was doing that.  It could probably be construed as either a greeting (or perhaps the opposite!) but was probably more of a stretching exercise as the bee began warming up in the early sunlight.

To learn more about bumblebees, and to find an easy identification guide (at least for the 17 Nebraska species) go to the University of Nebraska’s bumbleboosters site.