Marmalade Hoverfly, Speckled Moth, Caterpillars and Tailor Birds

With lockdown taking place and movement restricted, staying at home took a wholly different meaning. Not being able to visit national parks and wetlands meant that I would be forced to look at things at home to photograph. Perhaps the single most amazing thing was to see and hear birds of different kinds in the vicinity. The most common of all the tiny birds were the sunbirds, green and purple and the tailorbirds too. The blooming Morning Glory flowers and the Curry Leave's flowers were a great draw for different kind of insects, especially the Marmalade Hoverfly and the  Speckled Moth. The Moth incidentally was the first one I spotted in Gurgaon, perhaps it was because of the lower pollution levels.

The Marmalade Hoverfly though is a pretty common visitor and it can be seen feeding on nectar on most of the flowers in the garden. Another rather interesting insect was the caterpillar that was feeding on the leaves of a Lemon plant. I would have missed it if it were not for its light green colour which stood in contrast to the dark green leaf on which it was resting!

I managed to take a couple of shots of the caterpillar, of course with the camera mounted on a tripod. However, whether this caterpillar would have ended up in the beautiful butterfly that came for a drink of water is doubtful.

I guess there are many more interesting insects to photograph, though one would have to shift to macro photography to capture them. Photographing insects can be tricky at times, especially as you need to get close to them and any movement, therefore, is magnified a million times. It makes sense in many cases to use a tripod.

I didn't have much of a problem with the moth especially as it had decided to perch on the roof of my car, and so I used the roof itself to support the camera.

Even though most of the insects I photographed during the day looked rather neat and attractive, there was one that looked rather monstrous. It was a caterpillar that looked as frightening as a Frankenstein!

The counterpoint to all these insects was, of course, the butterfly in all its splendour and beauty. And to wind it all up, I am adding a few snaps of the Tailor-Bird that visits my garden every day. The reason I am adding the bird to a post dedicated to insects is that, firstly, it is no bigger than an insect, and secondly, it probably feeds on the insects that visit the garden. In any case, it is so difficult to take a snap of a Tailorbird for the very reason that it won't sit still. I guess all the smaller birds are so frisky and restless!