Dragonflies - added a few varieties for the road

Another one that never got much airtime, Jim.

apnews.com/article/Atlanta-race-massacre-9d738b6fa08d26ec91adfcd8fff30f7f

I read that. I bet every major city has a similar story. I think these events should be remembered, but I question the timing of a media campaign, at this moment, when race relations are simmering. I absolutely believe that true racism is dying. I see no point in stoking the flames when the perpetrators are long dead.

It took about 15 relaxed minutes to get those shots Ed. It is the powerful digital zoom that makes that camera so diverse.
Just be careful how you pick it up, it has so many buttons. If you happen to touch one of those buttons it is difficult to return it to your desired settings.

The Lumix FZ2500 camera may work for the Mohs.
Just be aware that the zoom extension is delicate and vulnerable to dirt/sand particles.
It is NOT a good camera for harsh conditions and the Moh's vertical butte climbs.

That rugged waterproof Olympus(TG?) point and shoot has an enclosed zoom extension which limits the amount of travel and therefore the reduced zoom capability. A trade-off for performance verses durability.

Thanks Patty. I gave all my aquatic plants away to clients except the Sarracenia. Glad I kept them !

There is far more dragonflies buzzing 1500 sq ft of carnivorous plants than 100,000 sq ft of shallow lily ponds and emergent plants.
Goes to show how plant diversity makes habitats.

Hat's off to Charles Henry Turner. His outlook on racial equality was also ahead of its time.
Honey bees are sophisticated - www.thoughtco.com/fascinating-facts-about-honey-bees-4165293

The macro photos are way over the top. It is all about the camera and lighting.

Way cool - love that you caught the butterfly tongue.
The dragonflies are always a pleasure.
Look at all those muscles on their back.
Powerful

The wings look almost drawn in, in the top photo.
So delicate & lacy.

Good adventuring in your backyard !

Patty

If country could reproduce a war machine that few as articulately as a dragonfly they would rule.
The design of that bug is off the chart. Bug muscle is incredibly strong for it's volume and weight.
A computer that could send and receive control signals on such a level would be substantial in size and weight.

"Most insects have multifaceted eyes—house flies, for example, have about 6,000 eye facets that give them a panoramic view of their surroundings. It’s the reason their eyes look like honeycombs up close. But with 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies blow them—and every other insect—completely out of the water."

Dragonfly Eyes Are Incredibly Advanced

Most insects have multifaceted eyes—house flies, for example, have about 6,000 eye facets that give them a panoramic view of their surroundings. It’s the reason their eyes look like honeycombs up close. But with 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies blow them—and every other insect—completely out of the water. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture.And it gets even crazier; dragonflies have visual senses that would be considered superpowers by any human standards. Human eyes have three opsins—proteins that sense light—giving us a color range of red, green, and blue (one for each opsin). Dragonfly eyes can have four or five opsins, allowing them to perceive the normal color spectrum, along with UV light and the plane of light polarization (the effect you get with polarized sunglasses). This is believed to help them navigate and reduce the sun’s glare on a body of water. These eyes are also the reason….

Multi-Directional Viewing

Fact: They Can See In All Directions
The massive bulbous eyes of a dragonfly wrap around its head like an astronaut’s helmet, giving it a 360 degree view of the world. As dragonfly researcher Dr. R. M. Olberg put it, “They can see you when they’re flying towards you, and they can see you when they’re flying away.” Obviously, this is a valuable tool for escaping predators. The above video (4) shows a dragonfly escaping the clutches of a frog who lunges at it from behind and underneath—in most insects, that’s their blind spot. Dragonflies themselves take advantage of that when they intercept their own prey—they attack from behind and underneath. But dragonflies don’t have blind spots, and they’re notoriously hard to catch.Okay, one more fact about dragonfly eyes before moving on. When they hunt, the compound eyes of a dragonfly allow it to sort of “section off” its visual field, like a grid. Keeping their prey in the same section of the grid helps with that incredible accuracy when they intercept something mid-flight.Here’s a human comparison—draw a grid on the windshield of your car and pick a target. A goat, let’s say. Aim the car so that the goat is in one square of the grid. Now drive towards the goat, keeping it within the same square. The goat will get larger as the gap closes, but your angle in relation to it will not change, even if it’s moving.



Swarms

The truth is, there’s an even deeper level of crazy at work here, as Dr. S.D. Wiederman discovered when he began studying the way Emerald dragonflies select their prey. Curious about the way dragonflies hunt, Dr. Wiederman and his team placed a nano-electrode inside the visual processing neuron of a dragonfly. They then positioned the “subject” in front of a TV monitor with two moving objects.In simple nervous systems, multiple objects tend to fade out; the insect can’t handle the attention multitasking. But dragonflies have the ability to switch their attention between objects at will. Under observation, the dragonfly focused first on one object, then shifted to watch the second, then shifted back to the first again, never losing track of where they were. This selective attention span allows the dragonfly to single out one target in a swarm, then zero in on it exclusively—while remaining aware of the the rest of the swarm to avoid a collision.

OMG

Those are intergalactic liveoak
Mellow Mushroom does full scale steel statues of welded car parts that keep me hypnotized.
In this case fine Swiss watch components, amazing.
Thanks for sharing, am blasted away.

PS I despise his skill of leaving no solder stains. How does he do that ?