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:
A pair of love-struck Red Milkweed Beetles mating:
Two fly species )unidentified):
And two different (unidentified) moths:
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