I’m writing this from Archbold Field Station in Florida, home of BugShot 2012. Apart from the fact that I was exhausted before I arrived and people here tend to get little sleep, year two of BugShot has been a blast! Like last year, I came with a specific goal in mind, to improve my skills with my flashes, and I feel like I’ve made great progress. Plus, it’s great to see so many people from last year again, including several bug bloggers. There are a lot of new faces to learn too and it’s fun making new friends.
I’ll give a more detailed account after I get home, but today’s Friday and that means it’s list time. I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been here, whether it’s photographic, entomological, cultural, or social. I thought I’d share a few photos (though they won’t necessarily all be good!) and five things I’ve learned since I arrived.
There is FAR more dust on my camera’s
sensor than I thought!
This has nothing to do with sensor dust. :)
I knew my camera’s sensor was dirty before I got here, but I was a little shocked when I uploaded my photos to my iPad today and saw just how dirty it really is. Ugh! Tomorrow’s goal: learn how to safely clean my sensor. (Note: That photo up there DOES has an animal in it.)
Hyacinth gliders participate in dragonfly swarms
Hyacinth glider from the swarm
I got to see another dragonfly swarm today! (Thanks to Troy at Nature Closeups for pointing it out and John Abbott for the ID!). It was a fairly small swarm of about 50 individuals spread across three little sub-swarms, but it took place right near sunset and the backlighting added to its magical quality. The swarm definitely included wandering gliders, a few spot winged gliders, and a red colored saddlebags that I never got a good look at, but most of the swarm was hyacinth gliders. They were so beautiful!
Florida has some BIG bugs and spiders!
Really big longhorned beetle
One of the things I miss most about Arizona is the palo verde beetles. There’s just something about an enormous, bitey beetle that I really enjoy, so I’ve been thrilled to see a similar species several times at Archbold. It’s in a different genus and it’s a little smaller than my favorite desert beetles, but it still makes me happy. It’s only one example of the enormous arthropods here too. If you like big spiders, this definitely seems like a good place to be.
Speaking of giant insects…
There are two species of the giant water bugs
in the genus Lethocerus at Archbold
Two species of Lethocerus
Lethocerus griseus is pretty darned small, at least as far as Lethocerus species go. Lethocerus uhleri is quite large though! It is so fun being in a place that has more than one species. They’re species I’ve never seen alive – and they’ve been just crawling around on the ground by the lights at night. Fabulous!
I can very easily adjust my flash brightness by pushing a button and turning one little dial on my camera
Poorly lit caddisfly
There are a lot of other Nikon users here this year and we, with the exception of our camera bodies, all have pretty much the exact same equipment. That means I can learn how to do things, like adjust my flash brightness, the easy way: asking other people rather than looking it up in the manual. :) Seriously though, it’s really nice to talk to other photographers that use the equipment that you use because you can share ideas and tips specific to your gear. That’s one of the best parts about being at an event like this!
And with that, I must go, and now. I don’t get WiFi in my room, so I am sitting on the parking lot sidewalk in the dark to get a signal, and couple of unknown insects just crawled down the back of my pants… :)
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The Dragonfly Woman 
Did you include anything with this post? Nothing came through? Rob
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My apologies! I accidentally published the post before I’d actually written anything. You should be good t go now!
Sounds like you learned about F.E.C. I did cartwheels when I got that one figured out!
This may be a stupid question, but what does FEC stand for? I’m clearly missing something…
In other news, all the repeat people miss you and we all wish you were here!
Flash exposure compensation – whether you adjust your flash intensity manually or use automatic setting (E-TTL), FEC allows you to fine tune for perfect lighting. And it’s really easy!
Crystal and Morgan both were asking about it as well, so maybe I should do a blog post about it.
Ah, but none of us have Canons like you do. Will the info you give be relevant to Crystal’s P&S or Morgan’s and my Nikons? If so, I am all for an additional flash lesson!
I’ll check into that!
Excellent! And I’ll read it regardless. I can always learn something from you, even if you do have a different setup than I do.
I spy a caddisfly! Leptoceridae for sure. Genus is…Triaenodes? I’m pretty sure it’s that, the antennae are stripped, which is often true in that genus. Color should have been a sort of fawn tan.
I don’t know my caddis adults at all, but John Abbott says they’re leptocerids and I’m going to take his word for it. Want me to look at any details to help you ID it? Or I can collect one and send it to you!
Nahh, I’m pretty sure it’s a Triaenodes (Leptoceridae). Can’t tell what species it is without looking at the genitalia anyway, and the females are even more difficult. If I had to guess, I’d say T. tarda or T. ignita, since those are the most common SE species in my experience.
I got some better photos that I’ll post at some point so you can look at them. They were so cute!
Thanks for taking notes!
You betcha! Crystal, though, did a much better job over at thebuggeek.com than I did.
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Lol, I was googling longhorned beetles to try to ID a nearly-identical picture I took of that same beetle in that same hand (yours) so I could label it on the BugShot Flickr set, and Google took me here!
Ha ha! Funny. There’s nothing like getting a dense group of photographers together in one place – we all photograph the same things!
If that’s the same beetle that Dave showed on his blog, I think it is Archodonted melanopus serrulatus.
Er… should be Archodontes.
Thanks!
John Abbott IDed it as a Mallodon. Does that sound right to you?
I explain my thinking in a comment on Dave’s post, but since I didn’t see the specimen I can’t be positive. Mallodon and Archodontes are often confused, even by cerambycid enthusiasts.
I’ll head over there to check it out! I’m sure we all photographed the same beetle. There were a lot of them!