Wish I Had: A Macro Lens!

 Ants are really fucking amazing creatures.  Did you know that:

• The weight of all ants in the world is the same as, if not greater than that of all humans?
• They have the longest life span of all insects?  30 years!!!
• All worker, soldier, and queen ants are female.  
• Ants and humans are the only creatures that farm other creatures.
• Most ants can survive 24 hours under water.
• You can find these and other fun ant facts here!

I really really wish that I had had a macro lens when I took these photos at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.  I'm really happy with the results I got though using my 55-200 zoom lens without a tripod.  The ants were super docile and didn't seem to mind me getting up in their space too much at all.  These particular ants are Red Harvester Ants.  I've never seen a Harvester Ant colony up close before, but it was really fascinating watching them work together. 

Harvester Ants make up close to 70% of the Texas Horned Lizards diet. The combination of pesticides and the red imported fire ant have drastically reduced the number of Harvester Ant colonies...which in turn has made the population of Horned Lizards plummet.  I've lived in Texas my whole life, and I've only ever seen one of them.  It was really neat getting to watch these guys though and I plan on having a macro lens the next time we go (hopefully they'll still be there)!

I Love Cicadas!

All my life, I've considered myself an explorer.  When I was a kid, my favorite way to spend my time was outdoors searching for this or that.  I was never afraid of catching or picking up ANYTHING.  I learned about cacti that way as a matter of fact, and a painful lesson it was!  One of my favorite things to hunt for though are cicadas and their shells.  It's always a special treat to find one as it's emerging, which hardly EVER happens, but I'm content just finding and collecting the shells.  I even keep a little apple jar on my shelf that's full of them :)

I'll usually just grab a jar or small bowl and go around checking trees, the house, or any standing structure really.  Those little guys aren't picky :)  In the above photo, I found all of those within about 10-15 minutes at my moms house. 

I also collect bones, neat rocks, and dead insects.  I'll save those for another post :)

Do you collect anything from nature?