Mokka mit Schlag

Just when you thought it was safe to go out at night, Moth Monday returns! Today’s moth is a Southern California speciality, Hodges 4891 – Dicymolomia opuntialis. Thanks to Bob Patterson for the ID.

Hodges#4891 Dicymolomia opuntialis
Fullerton Arboretum, Fullerton, California, 2009-6-28

It’s in the family of Crambid Snout Moths, a group of fairly small moths (a centimeter or less) that I’ve been finding more and more of lately, mostly by virtue of using a 1:1 macro lens and going out at night. This, however, I found in the morning at Fullerton Arboretum, perched on a light. It had probably stayed there all night.

It took some time and a learning curve, but I am now more or less happily using Adobe Lightroom 2.4 to manage my more serious DSLR nature photography. (I still use iPhoto for point-and-shoot family photos and the like.) Lightroom’s ability to correct exposure problems is nothing short of magic, and has rescued many photos. Here are some updates on things I’ve talked about in the past, as well as some open questions.
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I think it’s time to look for a new local bank. WAMU was marginally competent at best. Chase isn’t even that. I login to my account this morning and here’s what I see:

They say they want this for security, but I call bullshit on that. The real problem is that Chase’s system doesn’t allow the e-mail addresses that WAMU used for its usernames. Rather than upgrade their systems, they decided to inconvenience millions of customers.

And on top of that, the form doesn’t actually work. As I type this, it’s been “Transferring data from online.wamu.com….” for many minutes. And the final result?
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From Nix Nature Center, Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, 2009-05-24

Brokenbacked Bug (Taylorilygus apicalis) on California Bush Sunflower

But still the best shot I’ve managed with the new DSLR setup so I thought it was worth posting. Setting the aperture to f/8.0 and using a flash helps a lot.

The advantage to shooting honeybees is that they’re common, easy-to-find, and not especially nervous around people or cameras. In fact, in most locations they seem to easily outnumber all other bees combined. In the Americas and Australia, they are an introduced species that weren’t present at all until a few hundred years ago. Possibly they have displaced native bees and pollinators, though the evidence is unclear. (Alien Species in North America and Hawaii, George W. Cox, p. 48.) If they did, it likely happened several hundred years ago, before most folks noticed and now they just seem like a native part of the fauna. Possibly reduction of honeybee populations in non-agricultural areas might have a cascading effect on many non-native plant species that depend on honeybees for pollination.

Probably some sort of blow fly:

More pictures on my Picasa page.
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