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Fins to Feather

by Scarlet Colley - November - 2003

The world of insects is like the city of Lilliput to us. We are giants walking around in their tiny Lilliputian world. They are everywhere and in multitudes and we don’t see them very well. And they have wings so they can be anywhere, not just underfoot. We look at them squintingly, and more often it is their color that catches our eye. Just these past few decades, with the marvels of film and now digital cameras that many of us have, we are able to view insects from their perspective and bringing us insects up close and their life styles has many of us glued to the television or browsing thru books and magazines and websites. Now we can see them up close. With digital cameras and their zooms, we can take a snapshot, go home and view the insects we just couldn’t see that well with our eyesight up close and a new appreciation for their uniqueness and beauty, patterns and functions fill vacant areas of our memory banks and emotions.

Just a trip out in the garden can yield a successful photo session. The simple honey bee, visiting this flower and that, transforms from a tiny little buzzing noise, less than a half an inch long, to the full size of a computer screen in no time. Now we see its big compound eye, translucent wings, the soft furry looking body and its renowned stinger, its only means of defense. The dragonfly reveals its delicate patterns in its wings. The damsel fly with its wings folded back, the moth barley visible against the tree bark, the tiniest wasp on a lily, and a wasp wrapping up its caterpillar dinner have the camera snapping away and then with anticipation onto the computer for a real look.

Now we see the fabulous pattern in the moth, freshly metamorphosised. The wasp bundling up a caterpillar was a rare sight to see much less capture with the camera. The dragonfly, resting from its ever zipping around, munching on mosquitoes, was snapped just in time before it zipped off again. To see the detail on this flying machine is a treat along with the damsel fly that if you added the color is bright red. The tiny wasp is less than a quarter of an inch long and sitting on the water lily.

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