Common Milkweed Lovers

As a followup to yesterday’s post of the Common Milkweed wildflower, today’s post contains some of the prairie critters that are attracted to this lovely plant:

A Green Lacewing, searching for small insects:

Green Lacewing

A pair of love-struck Red Milkweed Beetles mating:

Milkweed Beetles mating

Two fly species )unidentified):

Fly on Common Milkweed

Fly on Common Milkweed

And two different (unidentified) moths:

Moth on Common Milkweed

Moth on Common Milkweed

Noticeably absent was the Monarch Butterfly. With their numbers being down the past few years, they are not observed on the prairie as often as they used to be (although I recently read that their wintering numbers in Mexico appear to be up substantially this year!).

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 7D body
  • Canon EF 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens (and a few of the images included a Canon 1.4x TC added to the lens)
  • Bogen 3221 Tripod, with ballhead
  • ISO 500
  • Aperture f/3.5 to f/22, depending on size of insect and how close I was able to get
  • Shutter 1/0 second to 1/1,000 second

 

 

Posted in Insect Photography, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers
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