HUMID MORNING JUST OUTSIDE VODNJAN

Twenty-four days ago, on the 12th of October, I spent some time, a couple of hours or so, in nature just outside the small town called Vodnjan.

In this opening picture, you can see a shiny black leaf beetle ...

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... that was photographed on the elongated leaves of the Echium italicum plant.

Here you can see another beetle of the same kind.

This one was climbing some natural straw that fell from one of the surrounding plants.

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The morning was pretty cold, but I like to feel the humid ground and vegetation under my feet, so I had no shoes. Only slippers that I left in the car ...

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... parked near the highway. There wasn't much traffic, so the place was fairly quiet.

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But even if there was more traffic I wouldn't mind because, when I look at the world through a macro lens, only things in front of the lens matter. Everything behind it, including myself, easily disappears. It's a beautiful sensation that can maybe be compared with some kind of meditation. Don't know much about spiritual stuff, but when people talk about those kinds of experiences, I think about being transported into the fantastic world of small things. In the two almost identical pictures above, you can see the slight change of the light on the shiny surface of the beetle's exoskeleton. The weather was cloudy, but a bit of direct sunlight was passing through from time to time. When the following photograph was taken ...

... the layer of cloud was compact again. I rarely notice these minuscule changes when I don't look through the camera. Since I love that state of mind, the camera is always with me. But enough about me. Let's talk about the beetle. This is the Timarcha goettingensis, a species from the Chrysomelidae family.

The vegetation around me was beautiful and varied. The most prominent plant in this photograph, the one with many small yellow flowers, is the Odontites luteus.

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Odontites luteus was growing near the Echium italicum as well ...

... and some of the yellow flowers ...

... fell on the hairy leaves of that plant.

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On one of the shrubs not far from there ...

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... I found an interesting larva. It looks like some kind of caterpillar, but it won't turn into a moth or a butterfly.

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This is a sawfly larva. Sawflies are insects of the suborder Symphyta in the order Hymenoptera which includes ants, bees, and wasps. If mistaken, an adult sawfly can be most easily mistaken for some kind of wasp. If you enlarge the above photograph by clicking on it, you may notice a minuscule wasp near the larva.

Here you can take a better look at the shiny little wasp. Can't tell you the name of the species but judging by its look and behavior, I'll say that this is some parasitoid wasp that needs a big fat larva like this to provide food and shelter for the offspring.

The scene doesn't look dramatic but knowing a thing or two about the reproductive cycles of parasitoid wasps, I'm pretty sure that this larva is in big danger.

The sawfly larva shown in these photographs is the Arge ochropus, a species commonly known as the rose sawfly. The larva was chewing the soft young leaves of the Rosa canina plant, one of the wild rose species present in this area.

This Coreus marginatus, a bug from the Coreidae family ...

... was photographed on the thorny dried-out branches of an older Echium italicum plant. The dense growth of small thorns looks like hair and is very annoying when it comes in contact with the skin. Coreus marginatus is commonly known as the dock bug because the nymphs of this species feed mainly on docks (genus Rumex) and some other related plants from the Polygonaceae family.

A bit later, after some more walking, I found a nymph ...

... on the curly dock (Rumex crispus).

These young wingless dock bugs have great camouflage among the dry leaves and the seeds of the plant.

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While exploring the Rumex crispus, I also found this dead paper wasp (Polistes gallicus) stuck in the dry, folded leaf. In the following photograph ...

... the focus is on the Echium italicum again. Here you can see a camouflaged Phalangium opilio harvestman resting on the plant.

This is a nymph of the Carpocoris purpureipennis shield bug.

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The minuscule red creatures on its back are the parasitic larvae of some mites from the Erythraeidae family. The adult Erythraeidae are active predators that feed on various minuscule arthropods.

On different surfaces, the dew was present in differently shaped droplets.

On these indented leaves, the droplets are small and placed along the edges.

Here you can see two bigger droplets and a minuscule one in the central part of the leaf. There is also another small droplet on the edge. It all looks very different on this type of leaf.

Here you can see a mix of bigger and smaller droplets on the leaf of the Chenopodium album plant.

The droplet shown here has enveloped this rosy thing that looks like some kind of tendril.

Here you can see the tiny flowers of the Asperula cynanchica plant.

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While passing by a dense growth of wild strawberry plants ...

... I noticed a spider on one of just a few dry leaves surrounded by greenery.

This is the Oxyopes lineatus, a species from the Oxyopidae family. Spiders from that family are commonly known as lynx spiders. They are ambush predators that don't build webs.

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