At first glance this may look like a Triceratops, but it’s a Male European Rhinoceros Beetle. It’s easily identified as a male, the female doesn’t have the “horn”.
I spotted both a Male and Female in the garden tonight and the Male was silhouetted by a garden light. So I quickly grabbed the camera from the house and took this silhouette photo.
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One minute your sitting in the Algarve Serra enjoying the birds singing, then you hear the deep buzzing noise of the Violet Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa Violacea) coming as if it’s on a bombing mission.
The first time people see these giants they may think they are dangerous, yes the females have a stinger (like all Bees, the males do not) but they pose no real threat of stinging.
They happily fly around you, sometimes bashing into things as they do appear to be drunk a lot, without even seeming to care you are there.
They are very common up here in the hills of the Algarve and grow to almost 4cm long!
They nest in dead wood or Bamboo. They will only choose rotting wood so pose no great threat to construction unlike species of Carpenter Bee found elsewhere in the world.
The males are often seen this time of year hovering looking for females.
Here’s a picture from the garden late this afternoon.
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Whilst drinking my morning “Bica” (Portuguese Espresso-type Coffee) I couldn’t help notice the stunning colours of the Bottle Brush Plant (Callistemon) against the glorious bright blue morning sky. The Honey Bees where busy collecting from it so I grabbed the camera.
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In this region of the Algarve, there are a lot of Honey producers and no matter where you go you will find Hives, even in very remote locations.
It might be near the end of December, but the Bee’s are still hard at work.
This one looks like it’s doing the Michael Jordon Air Walk!
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We have Sparrows in a nest box with young and saw the Female with a mouthfull on her way back to the Nest.
As well as the Spider (or possibly a Crane Fly), it looks like she’s got a few other bugs in there including what looks like at least one Wasp or Hover Fly.
The young have been noisy and are sounding more like grown birds now, I’m pretty sure they’ll be out and about soon.
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Whilst photographing the Parakeets in Abbey Wood, I was surrounded by Hoverflies. I thought to myself that as they don’t move around very quickly, could I actually photograph one in flight.
I had the 300mm with 1.7x Teleconverter on, so at 500mm I could photograph them from a couple of metres away. There’s little chance of the Autofocus being able to focus on something that small, so I had a few attempts and then managed to get this photograph by manually focusing and shooting with a fast shutter speed.
Ok, it’s no masterpiece, but this is a real hard shot to get, especially whilst handholding a D7100 with battery grip and the 300mm f/2.8 with Teleconverter attached.
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