Followers

Friday 21 August 2015

Identified Flying Objects

Hawk moth

At the moment my garden seems to be alive with flying objects hopping from flower to flower to collect whatever they collect, probably mostly pollen. I am not an expert in these things, but my Wikipedia tells me that this would/might be a hawk moth. They seem to believe in “safety in numbers”, and if you see one of them hovering, their relatives will not be far behind. As they hover and move, they are not the ideal subject for a photo and I am not the ideal photographer. However I managed to catch this one mid air as it was probing with whatever he probes to do his hawk moth work. I suppose you could compare them with mini humming birds, flapping their wings to stay in one position. I was thinking about having a conversation with this insect, but realised there was no time. As soon as I wanted to speak it flew to the next available flower on my buddleia.

Butterfly

It was just after lunch, although I was still devouring the rest of my spaghetti, when Mr. Swiss said “Look a red admiral”. It is not every day that I see a red admiral and to be honest, I believe I had only seen and heard of them in a book or on Internet. I immediately forgot the remains of the spaghetti to fetch my super Nikon camera, knowing that it would need a close-up photo from a distance, not wanting to frighten this unique specimen Heedless of the the warnings of Mr. Swiss not to rush as I might fall, I arrived in the kitchen in one piece, hung my camera around my neck and began to shoot outside in the garden. Unfortunately the red admiral was not waiting for me but in my usual sneaky way I managed a shot showing the details of the wing patterns. Again it was resting on my buddleia so a small tip to all photography experts (like myself?) plant a buddleia in your garden, it seems to be the Piccadilly Circus/Times Square of the insect world. I can imagine the hawk moth saying to the red admiral “Meet you on the buddleia for a pollen session” and the red admiral answering “no problem, but don’t forget to bring your pollen tube for a good result”.


I now decided to eat the remainder of the spaghetti when I heard a strange chugging noise above my head. Had the insects now developed turbine engines to propel themselves faster and gather even more pollen? I then looked up towards the sky and what did I see?

Zeppelin

Another flying object just disappearing behind the neighbours blinds on her balcony. Were we being invaded by the Swiss airforce? This is Switzerland and any strange unexpected invasion would immediately be stopped by our troops armed with their crossbows. I called Mr. Swiss, who always knows the answer to almost everything. He reads the newspapers, I no longer read newspapers, no time as I have a daily blog to write full of nonsense.


He informed me that there was a zeppelin in Switzerland travelling to the various airports and at the moment it was stationed in Grenchen. This is a neighbouring town and they have an airport. Apparently you can book a flight on this zeppelin. There is a gondola hanging from the balloon which has a wonderful panorama window for seeing the landscape below. It seems that this is such a success, the tickets for the flights were all booked some time ago, although I am not sure if I would have gone. I heard climbing into the ship is somewhat precarious as the ship tends to move on its moorings. I was a little disappointed to only catch part of the ship, but no problem. Our small village must have been on the zeppelin sightseeing list and so it returned and I took another photo. By the way Edelweiss Air, a Swiss air company, are celebrating 20 years anniversary this year with these special zeppelin flights. The ship returned, so I managed a full length view from my garden.

Zeppelin over Feldbrunnen

4 comments:

  1. Hi Pat!!! Great photos of flying things around your garden!! I looked up the first photo, as it reminded me of the North American Hummingbird Moth. Sure enough, the European version is the Hummingbird Hawk-Moth!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I only knew the German word "Schwärmer" so i looked it up in Wikipedia and came to the hawk moth. Your interpretation is more exact. We have them all over the place at the moment here. I think it was the first time i had got one on the camera in flying formation.

      Delete
  2. WOW! All of your shots are fabulous Pat. We don't have them here in NZ and we don't have hummingbirds either. By the look of the sky your day was a beautiful one. Ours has been grey with a lot of black and, sometimes a little blue pokes through to tease us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We don't have humming birds either, just the moth variety

      Delete