Nature Toolbox

First photography tutorials are underway

nbarr — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:33:56 +0000

Most of the photography tutorials are now under way. They are very basic at the moment, and need to be improved with more content and photos, but they are already a good start. They exist as a repository of information that will be increasingly linked to by smaller articles that will appear on the website with some regularity. Don't expect much from them at the moment, but this will be greatly improved in the future, always in the context of nature recording.

Here is a list of the already created content:

Ladybug life-cycle

nbarr — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:40:38 +0000

This summer I discovered that my bamboos, which are placed on my balcony, were infested with aphids. Not wanting to use any chemicals to get them rid of aphids, I decided to capture some ladybugs in the wild, near my house, and place them in the bamboos.

I wanted to capture around half a dozen of ladybugs, to be sure they could reproduce, since I always wanted to see first-hand their life-cycle. But luck seemed not to be on my side, since I was only able to capture two ladybirds, and on top of that they were of different species. Frustrated, I went back home and placed both of them on the bamboos.

The next day, with great surprise, I noticed that one of the ladybugs, a Coccinella septempunctata,was laying eggs! That way I could happily record the different phases of the ladybug development. The result was a complete set of photographs of the ladybird lyfe-cycle.

Ladybugs larvae, after hatching, pass through 4 instars, until they form a cocoon, and finally emerge as the adult insect we know so well. All the process, since the laying of eggs until eclosion, lasts about 3-4 weeks. In my experience, the eggs took 3 days to hatch, then the larvae stood near the eggs as a cluster for one day (where the first molting takes place). After one week, the time it took for them to eat all aphids, they started to make cocoons. They rested on the cocoons for another week, and finally ecloded as small adult ladybugs.

Welcome to Nature Toolbox!

nbarr — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:50:43 +0000

Nature Toolbox is just starting, and it will evolve a lot in the following months. For now, we are just starting to organize the website with the basic content, like the About Us page. But we soon will have very useful information for whomever has a passion for nature, and a passion for recording nature in photography, film, or whatever medium you choose to record on.