170. Water Strider Predator Orgy on a Coldwater Canyon Hike, Santa Barbara, California

Water strider predator orgy over a honey bee 1
Water strider predator orgy over a honey bee 2
Water strider predator orgy over a honey bee 3
Water strider predator orgy over a honey bee 4
Water strider predator orgy over a honey bee 5

This blog is "170" because I am filling in numbers that I skipped previously. The last hike I went on in the Santa Ynez Mountains was spring of 2003 with California Vegetation. And now? I went on a hike with ~#~ to Coldwater Canyon--heading toward Tangerine Falls--today. It is June 1, 2008. Ridiculous. What planet have I been on? We ended up stopping several times because we are both very observant of our surroundings, wondering what everything was and how things worked. Plus I had my camera. Aha! That slowed us down a lot. Taking pictures of things. We were in "biologist" hiking mode today. Biologists inch the ground for details. They are detail-oriented scientists. They are happy analyzing one meter squared of land. Other times I hike like a geologist--20 miles at a time--and you look at the landscape as a holistic gestalt. You may occassionally stop to scrutinize details, but you are really huffing it, because you have Outcrop Destinations you are intending to reach!

Along the way, we crossed a stream, and my goodness we encountered so many water striders! Fascinating life to float on water. But water striders are pretty barbaric predators actually. Even with their mating practices. I told ~#~ how difficult it is to take pictures of water striders, simply because they move a lot and it's very difficult to have the camera focused at the right lighting and angle. But TODAY I encountered a water strider Predator Orgy. They were all fighting over the body of a honey bee. As you can tell from the images above, it was very, very... combative. Pretty chaotic. But since there was a "large clump" of water striders, it was much easier to take pictures. I took advantage of the situation, and these pictures are by far the best pictures of water striders I have to date. I am improving!