WALKING ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON

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It was sunny and windy, hot and fresh at the same time, some invisible ceiling fan of titanic proportions must have been working the air.

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The kites were dancing ...

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... and the waves were rolling in the distance.

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Some friends and I were walking along the coastline ...

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... I mean, they did most of the walking, because I had to stop whenever I saw an insect that could be photographed in the intense sunlight ...

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... like this lovely small butterfly, probably the silver-studded Blue (Plebejus argus), but I'm not sure about the species. Quite a few very similar small blue butterflies are present in the area.

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Here you can see a bit of the blue shine on the upper surface of the wings.

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While passing by some blackberry shrubs ...

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... I noticed a very big wasp feeding on the flowers.

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This is the Megascolia maculata, commonly known as the mammoth wasp.

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The kites were visible from everywhere ...

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... they looked like some flying animals ... alien flying animals.

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Some big hotel is under construction in that area ... at this stage, the thing looks like the nest of some giant insects, like a place where paper wasps would lay their eggs. The concrete wasps nest.

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I continued walking, but soon I had to stop again, to photograph this marbled white (Melanargia galathea) butterfly.

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Then I walked across the meadow ...

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... and started sniffing around the thorny golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus) plants near the sea.

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Here I did the longest stop ...

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... and I took plenty of photographs.

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First I found a small jumping spider.

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I don't know the exact species. It looks like a member of the genus Heliophanus of the Salticidae family ... but who knows.

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The spider was running around the thorny labyrinth made of golden thistle's folded leaves ...

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... and it wasn't easy to catch him with the camera.

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The Ephippiger discoidalis cricket, a saddle-backed bush cricket species, was feeding on the golden flower ...

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... at the top of the same plant ...

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... and on another golden thistle, just a few meters from there ...

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... I came across an interesting scene. The Runcinia grammica crab spider has caught another spider and now is enjoying its meal. The prey is also a crab spider, the slightly bigger Xysticus luctuosus. I never saw this situation before. After this series of shots ...

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... I stood up and took a look at the horizon ...

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... at the blue distance, for a change.

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After some more walking along the sea, I stopped by another thorny coastal plant, the Eryngium amethystinum ...

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... because I noticed a beautiful shiny beetle there.

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This is a jewel beetle, Buprestidae family, definitively a species from the genus Anthaxia of that family ... but I can't tell you the exact species.

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The more inconspicuous Larinus planus weevil was hidden on the lower part of the plant.

And that's all. This is the last shot from today's walk. As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.



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11 comments
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Awesome flying job!
Can't wait to travel to Croatia for summer vacations. Counting day...

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(Edited)

The up close pictures look like a model for an alien :))

It looks like a member of the genus Heliophanus of the Salticidae family

You almost don't need imagination. It's all here, on earth, every possibility, if you look close enough.

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(Edited)

True :) it looks that the diversity of shapes, colors and life forms on earth covers all we can imagine.

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The month of kites in COLOMBIA is August, I know it because when I was 8 years old we visited a friend of Dad and they sold kites of different colors and shapes and made a lot of money, the ones I see in your post are very different but the wind helps lift them up, in your post I see that spider with all those eyes, it is impressive, it walks among thorns, so it is something quite different in its species, the butterfly is cute, in general an excellent post, well we are used to its excellent work.

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