Inside a Ladybird

Today I had the opportunity to take a look inside a Ladybird.

Well under it’s elytra. I am not sure if this animal was in distress or just in disarray but it gave me the opportunity to have a look inside and I have a curious mind.

It may seem unfair to take advantage of the situation but I want to understand the anatomy.

Unfortunately far from satisfying my curiosity the process of peeking into the interior raised more questions than answers and one in particular….

This wing is much too big to fit back inside the wing case. How does it do that?

Whilst I was wrestling with this entomological dilemma and unbeknownst to me, I was being done over by a professional pickpocket.

Deft little noses were going through my valuables.

I did actually beknownst what she was doing but I didn’t notice that my Zippo was missing until much later.

It must somehow fold that wing up to put it away.

In this next picture it appears to be rolling it’s wing but it is rolling it the wrong way, it is the length that it has to reduce.

We are just going to have to watch ladybirds really closely until we can find out the answer. I couldn’t find anything on the internet.

So  if anybody knows where I can see pictures of a Ladybird folding it’s wings then do please tell me. Otherwise we are going to have to take the pictures ourselves.

Being robbed in broad daylight makes me look really stupid.

It’s my camera. Just remember that.

🙂

The Summer of Love

Okay this is another post about the Common Red Soldier Beetle. Weather wise it has been a difficult day today, it didn’t rain but it has been cloudy for most of the day with strong, cold winds. I just have to work with what the agency send me.

Anyway it is a beautiful Beetle.

 

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..