I've been doing quite a bit of poking around in the garden lately and been seeing some interesting things. I thought I'd pick a selection to share, all taken with the MP-E65 on my 40D.
First here's a tiny garden spider, still in his spiderling colours, and he's caught a winged aphid, which looks like a big meal for him. Both were very small and blowing in the wind a bit too, making this a very difficult shot.
1.
I was trying to get a shot of a bee when I noticed he had a nasty infestation of some kind of mite. It's not a very good shot - I only got this one before he flew off, but I thought it was worth sharing for the view of his hitchhikers.
2.
I've got lots of these little shiny beetles. They're less than 1cm long, but when viewed close up they look amazing, like they've been panel-beaten out of a sheet of copper or something. It's probably Notiophilus biguttatus, but apparently there are about 10 species that are almost indistinguishable.
3.
Next is a froghopper. I'd never seen one of these before. It's very small: it's sitting on a grass stem. I think I took this at about 4x. According to my research it could well be Delphacodes pellucida, but it's definitely a member of the genus Delphacidae.
4.
Finally another of these rove beetle larvae I keep finding. They're quite small - I saw this one get hold of a mite, but it ran off. This is actually my first go at a focus stack using masking layers in Photoshop CS2. It's made of three shots to get the focus sharp from front to back. Luckily he was obliging enough to stay still for the shots!
5.
