Smile for the camera!

Bumblebees are among the most frustrating insects to photograph; they are so big, comparatively speaking, so numerous, so vibrantly coloured, that I am obliged to try to "get" them. But I aim, press the shutter button half-way, wait the split second it takes the camera to decide what I want, and ... try again. The main character has exited, stage left.

Try and follow one around, through all its dizzying changes of direction, until it lands on a flower, and it invariably (or so it seems) lands on the one flower that you can't reach without falling into the rosebush or stepping on the gardener's prize petunias.

Get a good chance at one on a daisy right under your nose, and it is vibrating so rapidly, so ecstatically, that all your camera records is a yellow blur.

So I was amazed to find this one on an allium yesterday; it stayed in the same position, on the same flower, for so long that I thought it was dead until I saw the antennae moving.




I wanted a face shot, since he was being so co-operative, but this was a bit harder; the tiny allium petals were always in between, and the camera liked them better.


Got it, though. Just before the bumblebee decided to leave; this was becoming altogether too, too public.

I'll have to do a bit of Googling to identify the facial structures: is that four eyes, or two? And if two, which two? (The forward ones, I think.)


This one presented no anatomical conundrums. And no buzzing wings; he was nicely subdued by his choice of flower. A second later, and he was backing out, legs and wings flailing. He spun and left, to land next on the topmost rose on the bush, well over my head.

Of course.
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