This year one of the challenges I have set for myself, is that if I go out with the camera, I must come back with some images, even if they are not what I went out looking for. Today the birds were not at home, so to get my images I looked for damselflies. I saw a couple but they were not in a good place to photograph. So next I turned my attention to the bees on the flowering hebes.
As I was processing the images I got interested in exactly what each one was. So I googled bees and bumble bees to try and identify them. Turns out one of them isn’t a bee! It’s a dronefly (Eristalis tenax). I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but the images I saw looked to be very much the same as this fellow below.
The bees are honeybees (Apis mellifera) and the bumblebees are small garden bumblebees (Bombus hortorum). Again if I am wrong please let me know so I can edit this post. Macro photography is not something I have done much of, and these are not shot with a macro lens. I have used my Leica 100-400 at it’s full extension to capture these images. I didn’t come home with any birds but I did get the bees 🙂