Sunday, June 3, 2012

Edge of winter

 It's been some time since I last posted, for a number of reasons, but the main one was that nothing much caught my interest for photos over summer. We had a fair amount of rain, great swathes of bracken grew everywhere (which meant lots of things hiding in it!) and very few flowers or shrubs offered themselves for photos. No celebrity flora leaping forward! These two fauna examples did catch my eye, and if anyone can identify the above, I'd be grateful. It was on the trunk of a ghost gum and looks like some kind of egg sac.

 This shiny specimen was on a piece of wood - it didn't look like a March fly (and it was later than March!), so I suspect it might be a sheep blowfly.

And this, of course, is a kookaburra, nicely fluffed up against the cold. I did try to upload a clearer photo that was a png file but Blogger wouldn't have it!

2 comments:

Snail said...

Not sure that your fly is a sheep blowie, but I'm no flyologist! It might be a tachinid (family Tachinidae). The maggots are parasitoids of a range of insects. They live inside the host, noshing on its innards. Some species emerge to pupate, while others pupate inside.

Sherryl said...

Yes, when I enlarge it and look closely, I can see bristles! Amazing. I'm enjoying the new camera that gets me in closer.

 
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