{"id":1179,"date":"2007-07-30T17:47:16","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T22:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/65.175.102.14\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2012-03-23T17:48:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T22:48:53","slug":"dragons-and-damsels-at-the-owls-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=1179","title":{"rendered":"Dragons and Damsels at the OWLS this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I took some time over the past few days to peruse the tall grass around the OWLS site east of Bismarck in search of some insects. They&#8217;re often quite difficult to capture on film, as they don&#8217;t sit still for long. Also, it&#8217;s VERY easy to get a blurry shot with a macro lens when focusing closely. Here are a few of the critters that I caught:<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/dragonfly_24212.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>Golden Dragon &#8211; this guy was actually panting in the heat! That was a weird sight.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/damselfly_24159.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>This little guy was a translucent white color with black stripes.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/damselfly_24171.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>The blue ones are my favorite, of course!<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/damselfly_24056.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>This little black and green fly was hanging upside-down with his wings spread. Here you can really see how my macro lens focuses on a very narrow range. That&#8217;s called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Depth_of_field\" target=\"_blank\">Depth of Field<\/a> and this lens has a very shallow DoF. Sometimes part of the bug will be in focus and part out of focus, which is artistic, yet frustrating!<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/dragonfly_24201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>Red Dragon &#8211; just like the title of a Thomas Harris book I read in high school, the one that introduced a certain Doctor Hannibal Lecter.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/damselfly_24146.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>Another white and black damselfly, hanging on in a precarious position.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/dragonfly_24075.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>This gold dragonfly exhibits some shiny gold to his wings as well as the rest of his body.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/damselfly_24155.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>These guys were hoving around the stalks of the plant life, occasionally darting in and pecking at them. I can only guess that they were eating little aphids off the leaves or something. This fella decided to stop for a rest, and that&#8217;s when I got him.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever there&#8217;s a good supply of little bugs for them to eat, they&#8217;ll be darting around. If you&#8217;re around water, you&#8217;re likely to spot little flies like this one. In years past, the state capitol grounds has been full of dragonflies, too! Keep your eyes peeled&#8230;they&#8217;re out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took some time over the past few days to peruse the tall grass around the OWLS site east of Bismarck in search of some insects. They&#8217;re often quite difficult to capture on film, as they don&#8217;t sit still for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=1179\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}