A Few January Pics

Wasn't expecting to take any photos in this early into the year, but I managed to get a few interesting pics this month so here we are.

These springtails were the first bugs I photographed in 2024! Unlike most of the springtails I find these ones were oddly relaxed, prefering to rest in one spot and occassionally tapping their anntennae on things of interest — probably due to the cold now I think about it.

Please pay close attention to the colours in the second photo! The little patches of yellow are great!

Two photos of springtails on resting on a log. Their body is pale in colour, but has subtle patches of light yellow, black, and brown.

It's only briefly snowed so far this year, not enough to lay, but we did get lots of frost. Took some macro photos to get a closer look at the ice crystals:

A macro photo of long thin ice crystals growing out of a log at various jagged angles.

I've been thinking it might be fun to make a texture pack out of the various nature photos I've taken over the past few years; these two photos would make a nice PS1 ice cave.

In addition to frost, the flooded dirt bin from last November froze over. At one point the ice was about as thick as a European Dreamcast game case (about 2cm if you want to be fancy). Floating about on its icy surface was what appears to be a moth fly/drain fly!

A small white fly with large wings covered in feather-like plumes.

My camera couldn't quite capture the details, but in person these flies have very simple wing venation — mostly just straight lines running up the length of the wing, rather than the branching segments you normally see on insect wings.

The same fly from another angle. It has thick cord-like antennae.

What my camera did manage to capture however was their feather-like fluff! Very cute! Probably the cutest fly I've photographed.

And finally, I had this page all written and ready to upload when right at the end of the month this mystery fly showed up. I don't recognise this family, but it definitely is a fly based on the haltere you can see just under the wing.

A brown fly with small round eyes like a button.

There's a large round lump underneath this creature and I'm struggling to work out if it's part of the fly's body or if there was another bug/object behind it when taking the photo. I'm guessing the former based on how its legs seem to fold up but it's very odd, I'm not sure why it's so rotund...