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Photo of the Day - August 2021

Start of a busy day. Train to Geneva Airport, two planes later in Washington Dulles where United Club has free WiFi. 3 hour layover for final flight home.
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Janichsan said:
London 1997, detail of the Palace of Westminster. Film scan.

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That stuff is amazing. I'm not generally into organized religions, but looking at the art and architecture from those times is pretty amazing. Heck, even secular buildings from the 30's and such are incredible in the detail that was put into them.

For architecture nerds and geeks, check out The Proper People on YouTube. They do urbex in some incredible places. Their recent one, the Lynwood Mansion, is so amazing. You can't get detail like that now. Most of the tradesmen that did that work are retired or dead, sadly. It's too expensive to have knockout architectural accents, so all new buildings look the same. *yawn*
 
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Clix Pix said:
The other day I was surprised when I suddenly realized that I was not alone out on my deck..... I looked over and saw that this pair were enjoying "afternoon delight" on the handle of my snow shovel!

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I believe the one that still appears to be alive is some kind of robber fly. I see them in the garden behind my house, and they take out bees and wasps with relative ease. I think they wait for their prey to feed on a flower, then just swoop in and take them out, unawares. They are strong enough to fly off with their food, too. The robber flies I see have a bit more hair, but otherwise it looks very similar. It's a much bigger insect than your everyday housefly, but not near as fat as the horsefly.
 
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Darmok N Jalad said:
I believe the one that still appears to be alive is some kind of robber fly. I see them in the garden behind my house, and they take out bees and wasps with relative ease. I think they wait for their prey to feed on a flower, then just swoop in and take them out, unawares. They are strong enough to fly off with their food, too. The robber flies I see have a bit more hair, but otherwise it looks very similar. It's a much bigger insect than your everyday housefly, but not near as fat as the horsefly.
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Like I mentioned a coupel on months ago on the spider thread, I had a huge jumping spider that glared at me from the top of a blue spruce tree in the yard, daring me to squash it, all the time with a death grip on a yellow jacket wasp in its jaws. I whole heartedly let it live, and wished it to have scores of offspring, to be expertly trained, to feast on the mass of wasps that camped out in every piece of lawn furniture we had at the time. (That tree is now over 25 feet tall. They grow fast in this area. And the wasp population was reduced for the rest of the summer. Take that you damn dirty wasps!)
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Like I mentioned a coupel on months ago on the spider thread, I had a huge jumping spider that glared at me from the top of a blue spruce tree in the yard, daring me to squash it, all the time with a death grip on a yellow jacket wasp in its jaws. I whole heartedly let it live, and wished it to have scores of offspring, to be expertly trained, to feast on the mass of wasps that camped out in every piece of lawn furniture we had at the time. (That tree is now over 25 feet tall. They grow fast in this area. And the wasp population was reduced for the rest of the summer. Take that you damn dirty wasps!)
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Yeah, I don't have a lot of use for wasps either. I guess they do their part, but we start to disagree when they decide to build a nest anywhere around the house. I guess one thing we have in common is that we both defend our homes!
 
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Darmok N Jalad said:
Yeah, I don't have a lot of use for wasps either. I guess they do their part, but we start to disagree when they decide to build a nest anywhere around the house. I guess one thing we have in common is that we both defend our homes!
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I had a nest in an old vole hole, and, bless them, they dug out a HUGE nest. I saw the little terrorist as soon as it came out of its hole, and it zeroed in to my arm like a heat seeking missile. *BOOM* I was stung. DAMN THAT HURT! And I saw it coming. It was pissed off... Wow...

After bombing it with spray, and even a tortch, I was able to dig it out. IMPRESSIVE! It was huge! 3 feet long, at least! At the thickest, it had to be about 8 inches! Wow...
 
Darmok N Jalad said:
I believe the one that still appears to be alive is some kind of robber fly. I see them in the garden behind my house, and they take out bees and wasps with relative ease. I think they wait for their prey to feed on a flower, then just swoop in and take them out, unawares. They are strong enough to fly off with their food, too. The robber flies I see have a bit more hair, but otherwise it looks very similar. It's a much bigger insect than your everyday housefly, but not near as fat as the horsefly.
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Thank you!!! I wasn't sure what the heck was going on and obviously did not want to get too close -- if ever there were a need for a long lens this was it! After I'd taken the shots I sat back down at the table on the deck and looked over a few times; then at one point I looked and the snow shovel handle was empty, no sign of any insect visitors at all. I assumed that the two of them had flown off together but if in fact the one was actually dead and a prey of the other it could well be that the robber fly, if this is what the guy on top was, was able to get a good grip on his victim and fly off with it. Huh, interesting..... Such drama on my deck!
 
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Clix Pix said:
Thank you!!! I wasn't sure what the heck was going on and obviously did not want to get too close -- if ever there were a need for a long lens this was it! After I'd taken the shots I sat back down at the table on the deck and looked over a few times; then at one point I looked and the snow shovel handle was empty, no sign of any insect visitors at all. I assumed that the two of them had flown off together but if in fact the one was actually dead and a prey of the other it could well be that the robber fly, if this is what the guy on top was, was able to get a good grip on his victim and fly off with it. Huh, interesting..... Such drama on my deck!
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They sure sound like badasses...
 
Clix Pix said:
Thank you!!! I wasn't sure what the heck was going on and obviously did not want to get too close -- if ever there were a need for a long lens this was it! After I'd taken the shots I sat back down at the table on the deck and looked over a few times; then at one point I looked and the snow shovel handle was empty, no sign of any insect visitors at all. I assumed that the two of them had flown off together but if in fact the one was actually dead and a prey of the other it could well be that the robber fly, if this is what the guy on top was, was able to get a good grip on his victim and fly off with it. Huh, interesting..... Such drama on my deck!
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Nature is really quite fascinating when you sit back and observe, and these days the resources are so readily available that you can jump right in and learn as more than you might ever care to learn. There’s also so much to photograph! I haven’t seen the robber flies lately, but I’m sure they are still out there doing their thing. I guess I never knew they are air-to-air hunters. That could mean sometimes what I think I see feeding in the air is not a dragonfly like I thought.
 
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