WHere DO you get your critters?

[ChrisR]

I tried the local pet shop for a deer tick. They're fresh out.
No bottles, either blue or green.

Do you buy them? Set traps out?

[rjlittlefield]

Crazy suggestion #1: for ticks, lice, fleas, etc., make friends with the folks at your local veterinary office.

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't think of this.

The folks at my vet's place did, when I happened to mention the kind of photography I do.

They offered to collect for me whatever passed through, at only the cost of letting them see the photos.

As for flies, try having a picnic?

--Rik

[NikonUser]

For bottles of the blue and green persuasion all you need is a very small piece of meat, a fish head works really well.
Stick the said piece of bait at ground level, place some type of screen container over bait. Just need a small opening at bottom, say 1-2" high and perhaps 6" wide.
I use a mesh laundry container (about $5.00 over here).
As fish head begins to get aromatic it will attract all sorts of flies, perhaps even a local pussy cat.
The real fun comes when you try to catch the flies in the trap.

Picnics work well over here too.


_________________
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

[ChrisR]

I tried with meat (catfood) with some netting arranged, on the bird table.
3 hours, nothing. Maybe the birds ate the flies.

Quizzical look from cat, though.

/\/\
OO
_!_
~~

[Harold Gough]

Greenbottles gather on fresh dog or (unburied) cat faeces or, together with other flies, in a dish with traces of cat (or, presumably dog) food.

Wasps will strip a small vertebrate corpse of flesh over several days (I missed recording this will a frog but captured it (images not digitised) with a vole.

Compost heaps, especially enclosed bins, are rich in flies and you may even find the cocoons of Eisenia worms. If you want to smaller beasts you will find mites there. For the less ambitious there are slugs.

I once had a mark-recapture exercise with earwigs living under the roofs, but over the crown boards, of beehives. (Some spiders also live there).

Enough of the weird stuff?

Umbellifer flowers such as cow parsley are rich in insects.

Any flat piece of wood, etc. left of the ground (bare or grass-covered) will harbour woodlice, springtails and beetles plus slugs and snails beneath it.

Harold
_________________
Happiness is having the right adapter.

My manual flash setup for high magnification:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117843#117843

[Aynia]

Not all catfood attracts the flies!! In our house it's battle.. Fussy cats or fussy flies.

Whiskas is probably the most effective at attracting the flies! (Just leaving it for a minute in warm weather and there are eggs all over it!! - )

They tend not to go for Kitekat, gocat, but sometimes go for Felix - (not steaklets.. the chunks .. but not the roasted chunks because that's GoCat in disguise)

As for catching the flies (I don't catch flies to photograph!!), get yerself a whiskas chicken pouch. Cut the top off (take out half the food and keep it somewhere safe or for the hedgehogs or the cat) and leave it partially open. Flies will go right in and you have them!!

[Harold Gough]

Aynia,

That just shows that we don't yet have any soya flies in the UK.

Harold
_________________
Happiness is having the right adapter.

My manual flash setup for high magnification:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117843#117843

[Harold Gough]

If you have a garden there is much advice on how to make it wildlife-friendly.

Minutes after making my previous post I walked into my garden. A fluttering drew my attention. It was a black and red cinnabar moth Tyria jacobaeae whose orange and black-banded larvae* have been found on ragwort Senecio jacobaea in our lower garden on several occasions but the plant had more or less died out. Last week my wife brought home two robust plants which I planted in the wilder part of the garden.

* A superb subject for beginner's macro.

The moth was on a crucifer so I trapped in in my cupped hands and released it 50 yards further on, close to the ragwort.

Harold[/i]
_________________
Happiness is having the right adapter.

My manual flash setup for high magnification:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117843#117843

[ChrisR]

Thanks all.
I occasionally see things like butterflies going through but I don't rate my chances of making them sit still. We do have a small pond, but unfortunately it has some fish which eat anything interesting. Apart from a crab spider which I put in a box only to find it had died and curled up tightly the next day, I'm not finding much.
I brought a woodlouse in, but it wasn't a roly and THAT wouldn't stop moving either, even when squirted with dust-off, which I assume is CO2. So Woody was duly freed.
Frogs? Voles? This is London not the Serengeti. We do get stray dogs and the odd fox.
I'll have another go this afternoon.
Maybe it'll have to be a slug.

Thanks for the catfood tips Aynia. I'm told ours will only eat organic Whiskas (good grief). Maybe flies prefer to go elsewhere, for a chemical fix.

[ChrisR]

About all I could find:

[Harold Gough]

Two at a time - making up for lost time?

A reallly rotten apple will attract some butterflies and keep them in one place for a while.

Harold
_________________
Happiness is having the right adapter.

My manual flash setup for high magnification:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117843#117843

[NikonUser]

So you do have some very nice insects around.

The Brits have a knack for conjuring up interesting, sometimes esoteric, names for their bugs.

They obviously didn't bother with this one "The Large Red Damselfly". A lot easier to remember than Pyrrhosoma nymphula.
(Just an educated guess for the species)
_________________
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

[Harold Gough]

[NikonUser]

[ChrisR]

As you like identifying things, have a go at these? All are from rather small parts of the field, so none too sharp. I do apologise for posting such low quality images . Batty was taken with pop-up flash, f32, ISO 12,800, point and hope. All on my holiday lens, a Sigma 28-300.
Location is SW Turkey. The blue fly was being chased around by a similar one, green without the large black patch on the wing. Different sexes?
You get twice as much money of you can ID the bat. I think the light blob behind it is another, further away. They were teeming about, presumably after insects. Wingspan I'd guess 6 inches.