I took these photographs last week, on a sunny afternoon ... that came after a cloudy morning ... an the rainy night ...
... could have been Monday ... or Tuesday ... maybe Wednesday, Thursday ... something like that. Butterflies were flying around ... quite a few species ... like this yellow Colias ... Colias hyale probably ...
... and the pretty large white butterfly, Pieris brassicae.
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This small Coenonympha pamphilus was resting on some small, shrub - like oak tree at the edge of the meadow ...
... a suburban meadow ... this place is very close to the city of Pula.
I had some work to do in the city that morning, and then later, on my way home ... while the weather was getting better and I was driving by the last buildings of Pula ... i felt the sudden urge to stop and see what's going on around these suburban meadows that I rarely visit. I went walking among the flowers ... the occasional blue Chicory (Cichorium intybus) flowers ...
... and many yellow flowers of the Crepis setosa.
Small bugs Stictopleurus punctatonervosus were crawling around many of those flowers.
The meadow on which I spent most of that afternoon was surrounded by various shrubs and trees. On one small, young tree ... I don't know the exact species, but it looked like some cultivated fruit tree ...
... I found an interesting ... and very well camouflaged caterpillar.
On this shot, taken using only natural light, the caterpillar stands out better against this green background. It's a really cool and sophisticated camouflage with these seemingly random reddish dots scattered across its body, practically identical as dots on the leaves in this relatively short, early autumnal phase.
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I took a few shot of the caterpillar resting on the leaf, trying the various camera settings ... and then ...
... the caterpillar started to move ... revealing the face ... so I was able to get this portrait.
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On this shot you can see the fly that landed on my hand while I was working on that portrait.
The caterpillar continued climbing along the branches ...
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... and at one point asumed this pretty cool pose. Oh, I almost forgot the species :D This is the Scarce swallowtail caterpillar (Iphiclides podalirius)
On the flat vegetation around the center of that meadow I found another beautiful ... and pretty large caterpillar ...
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... a caterpillar of the Papilio machaon swalowtail ... and then ... not far from there ...
... on the Euphorbia cyparissias plant ... I came across an even more colorful caterpillar.
This is a caterpillar of the Spurge hawk-moth (Hyles euphorbiae)
I saw many colorful insects on this colorful meadow.
This Crioceris duodecimpunctata leaf beetle ...
... was climbing along the hairy stem of the Crepis setosa plant ...
... and the Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata Lady beetle was resting on some large, salat - like leaf on the ground.
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There was a small parchment of terrain with no vegetation nearby, it had some holes, small entrances to the underground ...
... and I photographed this cricket there ... when he surfaced from his burrow.
I photographed this interesting plant also in that area ...
... and since the plant looked very cool and slightly different on every photograph ...
... I took quite a few shots.
Later at home, I did a bit of research on internet ...
... and found out ...
... that this is the Heliotropium europaeum.
I learned a lot of names and facts about local flora & fauna ...
... since I started to blogging ... on Steemit before ... and even more now, on HIVE, becouse my effort here is becoming considerably more focused and serious then before.
I have a few more shots of this plant ... that are surely a bit unnecesary ... but I was realy inspired by these shapes ...
... so I would like to show them all in this post.
This nymph of the Nezara viridula bug was also photographed on Heliotropium europaeum.
I was photographing this detail in the shrubs around the meadow ...
... when I noticed something very colorful in the vegetation below me.
When I took a better look ...
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... I saw that these are some beautiful bugs feeding on some vivid red barry. It was almost evening at this point, and this place was in shade of the tall pine tree ... so I had to use flash, that slighly deterioreted the beauty and elegance of the scene. I had to do something becouse this colorful situation was pretty inspiring ... so I constructed a makeshift pedestal using some stones from a nearby stone wall and my backpack ... on the following two photographs ...
... you can see how it all looked in natural light ... with all the shades and shine.
These are the Zicrona caerulea bugs ... one adult and some nymphs. This is a predatory species that only occasionaly feeds on plants.
The plant on these shots is Osyris alba, a widespread weed of the Mediterranean area.
And that's it ... with this closing shot of the meadow - the walk is over. As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.