Lesley Smitheringale Fine Art

Garden Guests Diary - Beauty is only skin deep [16 Jan 08]

I recently noticed a few cicada skins, still attached, in pristine condition, to branches in my garden and you can’t help but marvel at how amazing nature is and the natural life cycle of these insects.  As a result of macro photography, I am getting a lot closer to nature than ever before and I am learning all sorts of things about the tiny creatures who have been around me all the time …

Cicada skin

The loudest insects in the world, are cicadas - Their drone are one of the most recognisable sound in Australia, and herald the approaching summer. There are about 250 species.

The song of the cicada is only produced by the males as a mating call. How they produce their songs is still being researched today, but the organs that produce the sound are the tymbals, a pair of ribbed membranes at the base of the abdomen. Contracting the internal tymbal muscles causes the tymbals to buckle inwards and produce a pulse of sound. By relaxing these muscles, the tymbals pop back to their original position. In some species of cicadas, a pulse of sound is produced as each rib buckles.

Cicadas feed on a huge range of plants, including eucalypts and grasses. They feed by piercing the surface of plants with their mouth stylets. The sap is then sucked up through a tube formed by the concave surfaces of two of the stylets. They are not harmful to trees, although in some cases the growth of the tree may slow, due to the amount of sap consumed. Cicadas do not bite, even when handled, although their claws may feel sharp as they cling to the skin.  Birds, bats, spiders, ants, mantids and tree crickets all prey on cicadas.

Lifecyle
It is thought that the nymphs of the larger, common Australian species of cicada may live underground for around 6-7 years. This may explain why adult cicadas are more abundant during some seasons than others, with peaks occurring every few years.In contrast to its nymph stage, the life of the adult cicadas is very short, lasting a matter of weeks. Once the adult cicadas have mated, the female cicada lays its eggs by piercing the plant stems and inserting the eggs into the slits. The eggs hatch into small wingless cicadas known as nymphs. They fall to the ground and burrow below the surface, where they live on the sap from plant roots. Over the period of several years, the nymphs grow, shedding their skin at intervals.

Once the nymph reaches full size, it will dig its way to the surface with specially adapted front legs. It usually surfaces as night falls in the late spring or early summer. Then, climbing the nearest tree trunk or other fixture, it will shed its skin for the last time, emerging as a fully-winged adult cicada.

Info from:

http://lifecycle.cicadayear.comhttp://cicadablog.saltthesandbox.orghttp://rainforest-australia.com/cicadas.htm http://ausemade.com.au/fauna-flora/insecta/hemiptera/cicada/index.htm

Garden Guests Diary - Native Paper Wasps [14 Jan 08]

When wandering around my garden today I discovered at least two of these paper wasp colonies and after looking at the close-up photographs I took, I have immense respect for these industrious builders and protectors of their young.  Paper wasps form small colonies and make paper nests under tree branches and the eaves of houses. The nests are shaped like inverted cones, and consist of a cluster of hexagonal cells made from wood fibre mixed with saliva. The wasp larvae are maggot-like and develop inside the papery cells of the nest. These nests are a work of art and must take ages to build.  You can see the hierarchal order of the new eggs which are larger and more developed towards the centre and top of the colony.

The milky white eggs, which can be seen suspended within the cells, develop into paper wasp larvae. Workers feed these grubs on chewed up caterpillars of other insects and, when fully fed, the larvae spin a silken cocoon about themselves in which they develop into adult colony members.

Life Cycle and Habits

Paper wasps and hornets are social insects, living in colonies containing workers, queens and males. Colonies are annual with only inseminated queens overwintering. Fertilized queens occur in protected places such as houses and other structures, hollow logs, in stumps, under bark, in leaf litter, in soil cavities, etc. Queens emerge during the warm days of late April or early May, select a nest site and build a small paper nest in which eggs are laid. One egg is laid in each cell. As she adds more cells around the edge, eggs are deposited. Larvae in the centre are older with the younger larvae further out. It is the cells at the rim of the nest which contain eggs. After eggs hatch, the queen feeds the young larvae. When larvae are ready to pupate, cells are covered with silk, forming little domes over the individual openings. Larvae pupate, emerging later as small, infertile females called “workers.” By mid-June, the first adult workers emerge and assume the tasks of nest expansion, foraging for food, caring for the queen and larvae and defending the colony. Remember with paper wasps, the nest is the work of a single female, has a single layer or “tier” of cells and is not enclosed by envelopes. In hornets, the nests usually consist of a number of stories or “tiers,” one below the other and completely enclosed by spherical walls. Each cell may be used for two or three successive batches of brood.

Adult food consists of nectar or other sugary solutions such as honeydew and the juices of ripe fruits. Paper wasps and hornets also feed on bits of caterpillars or flies that are caught and partially chewed before presenting to their young. Hornets may be seen almost any summer day engaged in their winged pursuit of flies.

Garden Guests Diary - Blowing Bubbles [11 Jan 08]

I captured this fly blowing bubbles in my garden recently and was fascinated. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was doing it.  After a little bit of research on the internet, there doesn’t seem to solid evidence to suggest why.  Does anyone have any information on this?

Some theories:

Functional significance – if the behaviour has any – as yet unknown, but there are some interesting suggestions:

a. Bubble-blowing may play a role in digestion:

i. Concentrating the fluid through evaporation:

ii. Aerating the fluid so that microbial fauna would be affected to the detriment of obligatory;

iii. Heating up the fluid by exposure to sunshine.

b. Bubble-blowing is a symptom of a common fly illness.

c. Bubble blowing is a defensive move. Some insects use regurgitated food as a weapon. They try to spread the sticky, noxious liquid over the attacker.

d. Flies do blow bubbles to clean their mouthparts with this fluid, more or less to flush them, and after they are ready they ingest the fluid again.

e. Flies can use bubbling for cooling of overheated body – thermoregulation.

from: http://www.diptera.info/readarticle.php?article_id=16

Garden Guests Diary - Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly [1 December 08]

I spotted this butterfly in the garden when I was feeding the comets early this morning and I sprinted into the house to grab my camera. I ended up chasing this butterfly all over my garden before she finally rested on a leaf. (I’m sure my neighbours must think that I am a bit of a freak!) In my photography experience, to date, it is so rare for a butterfly to land, let alone sit for any reasonable length of time to actually take a decent photograph. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and while this magnificent creature was resting, I managed to take quite a few shots of her… very rewarding.

Orchard Swallowtail [Papilio aegeus] butterfly - female

A Photographic Journal at Mount Cotton Rainforest Gardens

 My first photo shoot in a decade …..

I am enjoying three weeks holiday at the moment and I have had the chance to get out and about as an artist and photographer for awhile. I visited a local ’spot’ that I had read about which is about a ten minute drive from my house. This place is beautiful and is off the beaten track in the Redlands area of Brisbane. This place has been featured on TV and in magazines so I thought I had better go and check it out!

Now, I have to explain at this point that I am an art teacher who spends most of her time with her students in her art room and this is my first time in about a decade since I have gone out on a “photo shoot” so I was feeling a bit apprehensive about taking photos in a public place especially as I am still learning the “art of photography”. Pushing my fears aside, I packed my camera gear including lenses, tripod and a freshly recharged battery, sketch book, pens, nibblies and drink, cash, etc and set off on my photographic journey….

When I arrived, there were very few people around which was good and as I was taking all of my photographic equipment out from the boot of my car, I thought that there must be an easier way of carrying all this gear - the dear old tripod for instance, is a necessary evil but does not make for easy trekking through bushland!

Reception area and creek with old farmland machinery

This is what I saw once I stepped into this beautiful oasis … a garden area by a lily pond and covered multifunction area for Wedding receptions, concerts, guest speakers etc.

As I started to wander through this “nature’s paradise” my first thoughts were “what a spectacular setting to get married in”. If my husband and I could do it all over again this is definitely where it would be. Throughout my wanderings I could hear a cacophony of bird and nature sounds which is a sign that I was a guest in a very special wildlife habitat.

This place is enchanting and very special and as the day progressed I got more confident with my photography to the point where the surroundings took over and other people were incidental.

Here are a couple my favourite photos which I took:

I was getting hungry and decided to have a break for a short while - this was my view from where I sat on a wooden seat, sipping my milkshake and munching my cookies.

Feeling recharged after lunch I retraced my steps to where I had seen some interesting flowers but I got sidetracked and saw the most amazing animals I have ever come across, grazing in a neighbouring paddock. I had seen these animals when I first arrived but they were over the far side and I thought that they were horses. They had obviously decided to try the grass at the other side and luck was on my side as I quickly swapped lenses to capture these gorgeous animals.

Alpacas

I have never seen alpacas in the flesh and at first they struck me as looking like camels, only smaller and cuter. There were two white and one brown one in the field. They were surrounded by a wire fence but allowed me to get very close with my camera and did not seem phased, infact, the brown alpaca was a real ’show off’ and he just “knew” that he was being photographed and did the whole head tilt thing and every time my camera focus noise beeped, he would adopt a new pose. I totally fell in love with him and I want an alpaca in our back yard - boy do they munch grass big time and huge mouthfuls at a time are devoured. You just never know what wildlife you will encounter and this was a magnificent bonus. I have one more surprise left though …

I was feeling very weary from all my photographic encounters and after taking a few more shots of flowers on my way out, I decided to head off home. On my way down I caught site of an animal moving in a property on the left-hand side and pulled over to get a closer look. Facing me in the distance was a red-necked wallaby. I grabbed my camera and tried to get as close to him as I could but it was private property. I took a few steps closer and he was perfectly still, looking straight at me so I grabbed a few shots and then he bounded off - this photo is not very good quality but it was the perfect ending to a fabulous day.

Red-necked wallaby

http://www.rainforestgardens.com.au/

Featured Artist - Tobias Zeising

This photographer is from Munich, Germany and it has been a hobby of his for over five years.  “I love to capture nature and the strong spirit of the moment!” Tobias says on his beautiful website at: http://www.aditu.de/home

Some of my favourite shots -