Not one of my favorite images, but this one has a compelling story to go with the image. We experienced temperatures in the upper 60’s and low 70’s last week and yesterday’s high was 41 degrees with snow showers. Bumblebees will roost on flowers overnight and wait for things to warm up . One of the major effects of climate change is that animals and plants cannot adapt to unspredictable shifts in temperature and many like this bumblebee will perish as it was caught away from its hive when the temperature shifted suddenly.
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Z9 105mm micro, fill flash -2.3 ev, 20 image stack. Images generated by manually focusing using focus peaking. Saturation of greens and cyans reduced.
So true, Jim. In the last week we have also had temperatures in the 80’s and this morning they were down to freezing. Can’t even imagine what the animal world is going through. Nice capture.
Aww, poor baby. I’ve taken photos like this, too, but keep in mind - basically none of the hive survives the winter in areas where there is a definitive winter. Only the new queens live through it by hibernating. If she is gravid she will lay eggs in the spring after finding a new nesting site. The first to hatch will be workers (infertile females) who will go out to gather nectar to feed yet more worker larvae. In late summer the larvae change from workers to fertile females and males. The original queen dies and so do all her workers (many of which don’t live long during the summer months anyway) and the males. It can be sad, but it’s how the species evolved.
Jim, I like the water droplets on the flower and the position of it with the bee. I’m sure the temperature shifts are difficult on all of wildlife, but especially bees and butterflies.
I really like this photo Jim as it does tell a story without the description. The bees here in AZ don’t have to deal with it as much. The water droplets really add to the photo as well.
