(All photos taken by @paradigm42)
Ah the beauty of the first Lilacs of spring! These gorgeously scented flowers are my truest indication that winter is truly gone, and spring is here to stay to flourish for a time.
My Lilacs are a magnet for many different types of bees. The Bumblebees are especially fond of the Lilacs I've found. It takes quite a bit of patience and stealth though to capture these folks well in a photo using my setup lol!
I watched two different Bumblebees that seemed to be acting rather territorial, fighting over the right to partake of the sweet nectar of the flowers.
No one ultimately seemed to win the battle, but they would have been better off not fighting at all and wasting the energy as there was plenty of flowers to go around!
While these small flowers that I think look very similar to the wild Strawberry are quite pretty themselves under my macro lens, the tiny Ant that looks so proud standing there is the star of this photo to me.
Now the tables have turned and the flower shines as the star here, while the ant plays second fiddle in the shot.
A Bee visiting the noble Dandelion is always a nice sight to see. Any time I feature this truly underrated flower, I feel the need to extol its virtues such as how the entire plant from flower to root is edible and very nutritious. It also has medicinal uses and the flowers can be made into a tea or even a delicious (which I can personally attest to) wine!
A budding leaf on a slow to wake old tree, taking all the time it wants to unfurl to full maturity.
Other leaves on a young sapling move with almost an urgency. They are much closer to becoming fully mature, as the young often yearn to grow up more quickly.
A member of the Buttercup family is getting ready to boom. It looks so soft, fuzzy and unassuming until you notice the small bit of bright yellow flower ready to burst out into the world.
A few days later this vibrant flower bursts on to the scene in eye catching style!
Not my greatest shot but, I found this little guy charming. Just a little beetle hanging around minding his or her own business
It's like don't mind me, I was just about to have a spot O' lunch!
An unassuming little plant with a teeny tiny secret. You just have to look really closely on the middle lower leaf. ;)
I will leave you with a shot of these tiny delicate and beautiful flowers that I love. I am so grateful I discovered my interest and now love of macro photography. As much as I have always loved and appreciated nature, it would have been fairly unlikely that I would have ever noticed the delicate beauty of such a tiny flower otherwise.
I hope you have enjoyed this foray into spring blooming brought to you in macro form! As always remember that it is all about the little things in life, and thanks for looking in! :)
(All photos taken on a LG 8 Thin Q 12mp camera, with a Xenvo 15x macro lens.)