kolbykirk.com

Oct

Ants Forage A Dead Bee

Filed Under entomology, photography

Ants Forage A Dead Bee - Click to view details

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Oct

Labyrinth Orbweaver Spider

Filed Under entomology, local travel, photography

I found this near Temple City High School while walking the neighborhood with my camera. It looks very similar to the Labyrinth orbweaver I found at OSH the other day.

This was a very skittish, clumsy spider. It appears to have a difficult time carrying its large bulbous abdomen. It also cannot grip plastic as well as other spiders I have captured. Similar to other orbweaver spiders, it plays dead when first approached. It actually fell out of its web when I attempted to capture it.

This ended up being a difficult spider to photograph, and not just because of its size. I recently built a light tent that isn’t really bright enough to allow for low aperature/high speed shots. In fact, I had better success photographing this spider while it was out of the tent using my flash ring.

Make sure to scroll to the bottom to get an idea of the size of this spider.

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Oct

Western Black Widow (male)

Filed Under Uncategorized

While walking to the end of my private street to get the mail, I passed an unusual sighting: a western black widow male. I’ve seen many females - there everywhere in Southern California - but never a male. One would think it is because females eat males after mating, however this is a myth:

The name “widow spiders” came from the belief that the female usually killed and ate the male after mating. It is now known, however, that this practice of “husband killing” was an artifact of the conditions under which observations were made. In early behavioral studies, the male widow spiders were kept in small containers with the females and they could not leave after mating. The usual result was that at some point, the female would mistake the male for prey and he would be eaten. Subsequent studies, both in the laboratory and the field, have shown the female eating the male rarely occurs so long as he is able to leave her web after mating. Interestingly, there is one spider in the same group as the American widow spiders, the Australian redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), where the female actually begins eating the male as part of the mating ritual. However, this is a unique example among the spiders.

[Source: Virginia Tech Department of Entomology]

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Sep

Shootin’ Up Los Angeles III

Filed Under local travel, photography, urban-explorers.com

Not too long ago, I created a photography group called Shootin’ Up Los Angeles (SULA). The idea was to explore different areas of Los Angeles with cameras and a desire to share photography ideas. Anyone with a camera is welcome to join SULA, no matter if they own a top-of-the-line SLR or just a disposable. As the saying goes, It’s not the camera that makes a good shot, it’s the photographer. I find that photographing with other people inspires more creativity and sharing of photographic ideas.

So on Thursday, September 18th, a two friends and I headed to downtown Los Angeles. I was hoping for a larger turn out, but with just three of us, it allowed us to get around much faster than if we had more people. In fact, for SULAII, we had just enough time to explore a few streets in Pasadena and Chinatown. But the amount of terrain covered is not the point of SULA - it’s seeing the world through the perspective of other Angelino photographers, which hopefully leads to creativity and growth.

To see the other photos, check out my SULA flickr group. Here are a few of my photos:

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Sep

The OSH Spider

Filed Under entomology, photography

I spent the day doing some errands and home improvement projects. I didn’t expect to have time to take any macro photos today. I definitely didn’t think I’d be smuggling any spiders out of a store.

I was in OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) getting a spray bottle and some ground soil. While waiting for assistance out in their garden center, I spotted a small spider in a spiral orb web - the one most people think of when they imagine a spider web. Empty spray bottle in hand, I wrangled the spider into it and took it home for closer inspection.

I’m having difficulty identifying it so for now I’ll just call it the “OSH spider”. I’ll release it outside my apartment when I’m done. I’m not sure OSH will want it back.

[EDIT] - I think I have identified it as a labyrinth orbweaver - (Metepeira labyrinthea)

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Sep

Alien Head Spider

Filed Under entomology, photography

While exploring the LA Arboretum last weekend, I found a tiny spider on a tree. I snapped a few pics and realized that he might actually be dead. I brought a small vial with me and stored the little guy for further viewing back at home.

When I got home, he wasn’t as dead as I thought. He was crawling around making himself at home in the vial.

I attempted a few dozen photos Tuesday evening, but the vial glass made the shots all slightly blurry. I moved him into a larger vial and added some leaves and a few ants - making him comfortable as I tried to figure out how to photograph the tiny guy. Wednesday night I noticed he made a small web within the vial and opened it to see if I could photograph him sitting in it. However, I forgot that non-dead spiders have a tenancy to move around a lot. None of the photos came out.

Last night, however, I got lucky. After opening the vial, he moved around for a bit, but settled down after a few minutes in a newly-formed web spread over the opening of the vial. I snapped just enough pics to work with.

Following the instructions of one of my favorite insect photographers, Brian Valentine, I ran the photos through a shareware program called CombineZM. Here’s the results of two stacked images:

The spider’s scientific name is Zygiella x-notata, but it appears not to have a common name. My guidebooks state that the male can grow to be about 5mm in length, a few millimeters shorter than the female. I don’t know enough about spider anatomy to know which gender it is, but I’ll just continue to call it a male.

I would like put in this name for approval: The Alien Head Spider. Really take a look at the spider’s abdomen. Can you see the alien head?? Here’s the alien from the film Independence Day for comparison:

I plan on returning him to the arboretum and his tree this weekend. I’m sure the mother ship has been looking for him.

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Sep

Western Black Widow

Filed Under entomology, photography

I photographed a western black widow the other day, much to the discomfort of my friends. We were in downtown Los Angeles with our cameras, doing what I have come to call “Shootin’ Up Los Angeles”. I organize the outing every 4-5 months and invite friends and co-workers to join me. But more on that in another blog post.

We were walking down North Main Street just west of Olivera Street when I spotted the venemous spider. The street and sidewalk was not very well lit, so it surprised me that I spotted the black arachnid chilling in a corner. I set up the tripod and tried to manually focus, but the angle was too strong for my cheap tripod to handle and my camera slowly bowed down.


Photo copyright R. Beltran

To solve the problem, I blew gently on the spider, causing it to head up her web about a foot, stopping at the perfect height for my camera! (see above)

I snapped a few shots as my friends helped light the spider with their camera’s flashes, but the shots came out over-exposed. I decided to switch from my Canon EF24-70 f2.8 L lens (pictured) to my Canon 100mm Macro F2.8 USM lens. Focusing was even more difficult, but after a few shots, I finally got what I was looking to get:

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Sep

Porch Light Visitors II

Filed Under entomology, photography

I’ve decided to start a “Porch Light” series dedicated to the strange and wonderful creatures hanging out at my porch light at night. The first in this series is the European Mantis from earlier this month. In fact, the mantis visited the porch light again tonight - the first I’ve seen of her since that night.

Tonight’s star was a strawberry root weevil (Otiorhynchus cribricollis), whom was calm enough to sit and pose for me for a while. I tried a few settings on my ring flash (as well as tried using just the ambient light) and in the end, I got this shot by holding the ring flash in front of the weevil.

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Sep

Patriotic Photo Theme

Filed Under international travel, local travel, photography

Red

White

Blue

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Sep

First Look: Animal Life by Charlotte Uhlenbroek

Filed Under graphic design, kahunna.net, photography

Did you watch the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth as if it was the newest action thriller? Are you fascinated by most programs on Discovery Channel? Do you read National Geographic Magazine? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then you need to read on.

I was at my local bookstore looking for a book on insect macro photography when I passed behind a man flipping through a book. Sounds like something that happens all the time in a bookstore, right? But this was the first time I passed someone where, in a blink of an eye, I had the desire to immediately purchase the book they were perusing.

I started a conversation with the man who, wouldn’t you know it, has a name. He goes by Thom Bluemel and he’s the brilliant creator of Bird Brains.

The book he was reading is called Animal Life: Secrets of the Animal World Revealed by Dr. Charlotte Uhlenbroek. Unlike other hefty encyclopedic tomes on animals, this one specifically covers animal behavior. But this was not what drew me to the book over a Thom’s shoulder. The 5.8 pound book is sweet, sweet eye-candy. Produced in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History and Doris Kindersley Publishing, every one of its 512 pages is visually stunning - both in design and in photography.

I’ll end my first look with photos I took of the spreads. The book retails for $50, but you should be able to find it for sale at about $35. Either way, it’s worth every penny.