SPRINGTIME BEAUTY UNDER THE FULL MOON

Yesterday, at the end of a warm, sunny Saturday, I drove a couple of kilometers to the port of Liznjan and then a little less than a kilometer further to the fields and meadows of the area called Palera.

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The night wasn't far when I arrived, so I had little time to find something interesting to photograph while enjoying the evening atmosphere. Fortunately, the season of abundance provided more than enough attractions. In less than an hour, I caught all I'm presenting in today's post.

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This is a portrait of the plant commonly known as the shepherd's purse. The scientific name of the species is Capsella bursa-pastoris.

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These dry stems and seed pods created a nice contrast with the surrounding greenery.

Here, you can see the shepherd's purse flowers situated on one of the still fresh and vital stems, while in the following photograph ...

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... the focus is on a single heart-shaped seed pod seen through the macro lens.

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You can see more of the same in this tryptich. More Capsella bursa-pastoris surrounded by juicy green vegetation.

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As the night approached, many moths started appearing on the scene.

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In this photograph, I managed to get a bit closer to the insect after a bit of sneaking.

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This is the Plutella xylostella, commonly known as the Diamondback Moth, a small species from the Plutellidae family. The color and markings can be slightly different from individual to individual in this species. This series of three shots, taken while I was trying to see how close to the moth I could get, shows a relatively pale, uniformly colored Plutella xylostella. You'll see a slightly different moth of the same species a bit later in the post.

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The first thing that caught my attention after stepping out of the car ...

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... was this lovely trio of showy red poppies. The conditions for photographing in natural light were still relatively favorable, but it was getting darker very fast.

Here, you can see the unpaved road that leads through the fields and meadows. The photograph was taken about half an hour later.

At that point, the rising moon looked like a big juicy orange grown at the top of the mulberry tree.

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Many tiny Scaptomyza pallida flies from the Drosophilidae family were scattered all across the meadow, but I photographed only one of them for this post.

Here, you can see a small, well-camouflaged bushcricket nymph. This is the very young version of the Tettigonia viridissima bushcricket. Tettigonia viridissima, commonly known as the great green bushcricket, is one of the biggest insects in this area. It is hard to see the connection between the tiny wingless nymph and the big, robust, winged adult at first sight.

This slightly bigger fly belongs to the Anthomyiidae family. The name of the species is Delia radicum.

Here you can see a cabbage white butterfly ...

... resting on the common poppy (Papaver rhoeas) plant.

The scientific name of this very widespread, easy-to-encounter butterfly species is Pieris rapae.

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When I managed to get very close to the resting insect, I took two slightly different shots from the same place and the same angle. The picture on the left shows the scene illuminated with the small, built-in flash of my camera, while in the one on the right, you can see the same thing in the low natural light.
Not far from there, less than a meter, I suppose ...

... a tiny spiderling was hanging upside-down in the center of its orb.

This is the juvenile Neoscona adianta, a species from the Araneidae family.

A bit later, I came across another spiderlng. It certainly belongs to the same Araneidae family, but in this case, I can't tell you the name of the species.

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Do you remember the poppies I photographed upon arrival in Palera? I photographed them again about fifteen minutes before leaving the place. I used the flash this time to make the flowers in the foreground of this wide shot stand out in the evening scenery. This is probably the photograph that shows the overall atmosphere the best. What a beautiful evening it was. The birds were singing all around me. I haven't felt so inspired to explore and photograph for quite some time.

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