borjan 3Speak Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Listen and watch the latest videos from borjan. Hosted by 3Speak.tv. The free speech video platform on the HIVE blockchain.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/wuuogghmmn
Once upon a time, from I don't know exactly when to the seventies, a couple of kilometers from the village of Liznjan, there was a rural, agricultural organization of the socialist/communist type. It comprised five or six buildings but I'll present only two in today's post.
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The buildings must have looked the same when they were freshly built, but now, after decades of abandonment, the decay created some differences.
I don't know what exactly their function was when the agricultural commune was active but they look like administrative buildings to me.
To better delineate the differences between the ruins I gave each one a fairly poetic name I invented for this occasion and I broke the post into two parts. (Enlargeable)
Both buildings are surrounded by lush vegetation.
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Here you can see the exterior of the one I called "The House of Bottlecaps"...
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... becouse I found many plastic bottle caps in one of its rooms.
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It looked like the floor was deliberately paved with them in some places.
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The bottles somehow disappeared but it seems that their colorful caps are here to stay forever. I don't know how the bottlecaps ended up accumulating in one place. Maybe this was a party room of sorts.
There is the word "Love" written in a heart-shaped frame on one of its walls. This looks like a clear sign that local teenagers were or still are visiting the abandoned building.
The plastic bottles were probably collected to squeeze some money out of them by returning them to the supermarkets while the caps remained.
I visited the building early in the morning.
The sunlight was beautiful.
The roof is missing so, for the most part, the plants are nicely exposed to the sun inside just like on the outside.
In this photograph, you can take a look through a window of a room situated in the darker part of the building.
The Crematogaster scutellaris ants were running up and down the lower part of the empty window frame.
I watch them for a while. I can watch ants at work for hours.
This is the entrance. I mean, it's where the entrance door was situated when the building was in good shape. Nowadays there are more holes through which one can enter after passing through a barrier of shrubs and various tall herbaceous plants.
This is one of the upper windows. There is a nice variety of textures around it. You can see stones, old plaster, and a small area still covered with white wall tiles.
Blackberry shrubs are prospering in the sunniest places inside the house of bottlecaps. Rubus ulmifolius is the scientific name of this blackberry species. Its fruits are very sweet.
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Shadier places are dominated by ivy (Hedera helix).
This small Parietaria judaica plant is growing on the stairs that lead to the small part of the first floor that still hasn't collapsed.
Here you can see some fragments of that phantom floor that for the most part isn't there anymore.
This is yet another of the upper windows.
A spider was hanging near the wall but I wasn't able to get the focus on him. I only had a small, partially broken compact camera in 2019 when all the photos I'm presenting in today's post were taken.
Here you can see another quadrangular hole that can serve as an entrance.
At some point last night, while preparing the old photographs, I started playing in Photoshop. That's how this GIF was created. I needed something to break the routine of the editing process.
With this photograph, is time to say goodbye to the House of Bottlecaps.
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I didn't see many moths in that building. About a dozen, only. But they were kinda iconic, and "The House of Moths" sounded like a good title. Moreover, I didn't find any of them in the ruin presented in the first part of the post.
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In this photograph, you can take a look at the building's exterior. The vegetation was less exuberant here back than in 2019.
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Thanks to an unknown artist, one of the windows became the open mouth of a monster whose silent screams can be heard all day and night if you are in the right mood to hear imaginary sounds inside your head.
This is the place through which I entered.
The floor was abundantly covered with ivy in that part of the building. The growth of that plant looked like a green tentacle that was slowly entering deeper and deeper into the House of Moths.
Here you can see the place where the main entrance door was situated and the stairway that leads to the first floor.
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The House of Moths has a good bit of its first floor still standing ...
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... so I climbed the stairs to see what was there.
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Here you can take a look at the canopy of the nearby tree through one of the upper windows.
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These two shots show two small rooms there on the first floor.
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Here you can take a look at the vegetation on the top of the building. Since the roof isn't there anymore, the top means only the top of the walls.
This photograph was taken from the top of the stairway.
A bit further on my way down I took another shot.
This window is situated in the darker part of the ground floor.
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"Peace to you" was written in Croatian on one of the walls in the neighboring room.
Some delicate young plants were growing on the dirt in the corner.
Here you can see a hole in the wall. The photograph was taken in the same room.
Here you can see what I saw while peeking through a hole in another room.
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This is a scene from yet another room with just one horizontally placed quadrangular window. This type of room looks almost perfectly the same in both buildings.
Here you can see a young, delicate plant that was growing by the window.
At one point, while standing there in the gloom ...
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... an alien or interdimensional creature appeared right in front of my eyes.
The thing was floating in the air.
OK, I'm kinda joking here. Or more like fantasizing.
At some point yesterday, bored with preparing the ordinary photographs for this post, I took one of my old artworks, cut the creature out of it, and put it in a photograph.
Everything was done in Photoshop, of course.
This photograph was taken in the same room. You can see the colorful fragments of different layers of paint and plaster on the wall.
I was walking toward the sunniest room in the building when I took this shot. The branches in the foreground belong to a fig tree (Ficus carica).
You can see a ground-floor entrance and a first-floor window in this vertical shot.
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Here you can take a look at the sky. You can also see a nice reflection in the wall tiles on the first floor.
Unlike in the House of Botllecaps, I was able to visit the cellar here in the House of Moths.
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The moths were enjoying the dark, cave-like ambiance of the cellar.
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Hypena obsitalis is the name of this species from the Erebidae family.
The floor in the cellar was covered with a thick layer of mud.
The mud was hardened so walking on it wasn't a problem.
Since it was pretty dark down there, the exposure had to be pretty long. That's why this photograph which shows the interesting pattern on the surface of the mud, is uncomfortably blurred and kind of hard to watch. I like the lines on the surface very much so I included this bad photograph in the post anyway.
The following shot ...
... shows the cellar window.
A neat line was separating the upper part of the cellar walls which looked fairly clean from the lower and larger part which looked dirty or painted with mud.
That's all I can tell you, and all I can show you about the building I called the House of Moths for this occasion.
Besides the photographs, I also recorded a bit of footage while exploring the ruins. Late last night, I collected all those fragments in motion and made the following video out of them. Have a good viewing.AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE VIDEO ARE MY WORK.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/segfqmzbbh
A couple of days ago, a couple of friends came to visit. One of those friends and I were preparing something to eat early in the afternoon and the cat called Bembo was supervising the cooking.
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In today's epic multimedia post, I'll show you the food, the cat, and the overall atmosphere of that sunny winter day.
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Bembo is present in almost every shot but you can't see him in this one. Here I'm showcasing the mushrooms and some of the vegetables we used to quickly make a tasty & healthy lunch. The things cut in slices were cut by my hand, but ...
... but since I was also there to record and photograph, all the visuals are my work, you won't see me cutting today. I wasn't in the mood for the kitchen acrobatics that could allow me to use the knife and the camera at the same time.
Chicken breasts spent the whole previous day dipped in oil and spices. That treatment made them considerably tastier than chicken meat should be.
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The main spice was Vegeta, a salty mix of dry vegetables and spices, one of the most iconic products of former Yugoslavia.
The mighty socialist Yugoslavia looked much stronger than Vegeta when I was a kid but Vegeta survived the nineties, Yugoslavia did not.
Bembo looks very proud in this photograph. Every statue of a heroic cat should look exactly like this.
Here you can see the food from the perspective of the Pholcus phalangioides spider on the ceiling. Eventual ghosts and angels floating in the air would also see the chicken meat, mushrooms, and vegetables that way.
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Here you can take another look at some of the stuff I cut in pieces that day.
Tomatoes are vivid red as the doors and drawers of the kitchen cabinets.
That's pretty stylish, right? C'mon, admit it!
In the following photograph ...
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... you can finally take a look at the scene from Bembo's perspective. Bembo is the king of the kitchen in the same way the lion is the king of the jungle. My kitchen even looks a bit like a jungle sometimes.
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None of this would have been possible without him. I mean, we would probably have been able to fry some chicken and vegetables without Bembo's moral support and assistance but the post wouldn't ended up being as cool and fun as you can currently see it.
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I showed you quite a few photographs that more or less successfully illustrate everything I'm writing about, but the central, most attractive part of today's post is something else. A video! Have a good viewing and may the good food always be with you.
The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff I found on Pixabay.
Music by Maksym Dudchyk from Pixabay
Music by Sergio Prosvirini from Pixabay
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This photograph shows that Bembo doesn't appreciate the onion no matter how well that vegetable is prepared. When the following shot was taken ...
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... Bembo was staring at the mushrooms in the frying pan.
And that's it.
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I don't know what else could I tell you here.
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Later that day, exhausted by everything he saw, Bembo decided to take a nap in the clean, empty pan on the top of the fridge.
AT THIS MOMENT I ALSO AM READY TO FALL ASLEEP. IT'S TIME TO SAY GOODNIGHT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/mhlnyqkoqx
The previous episode ended with the winged Lasius niger queen ready to fly and, if everything goes according to the reproduction plan, establish a new colony.
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When I revisited Marlera three days later ...
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... I came across the considerably bigger queens of another species. In this set of four photographs, you can see the Messor wasmanni queen digging the hole in which to start a new colony.
At this point, with the mating done, the queen has lost its wings.
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The existing Messor wasmanni colony has released its reproductive members recently. Probably at the end of the previous day. Some winged & wingless males and females ended up in the fangs of spiders. Here you can see a reproductive male with elegant transparent wings caught by a crab spider much smaller than the ant.
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Xysticus kempeleni is the name of this spider from the Thomisidae family. The strong venom paralyzes the insects instantly allowing the small spider to hunt big prey without using the silky threads. In this set of eight photographs, the scene is the same, but the background is slightly different in each shot.
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This considerably bigger Xysticus lanio, another species from the same genus in the Thomisidae family has caught a reproductive Messor wasmanni male that has lost its wings and was about to die soon anyway.
These ambush predators are well camouflaged on brown surfaces, in leaf litter, or, like in this case, on the top of the tall dry grass.
Here you can see another spider from the same genus but the scene is set on a fresh, green Dittrichia viscosa plant. The ant's wings partially hide the spider in this shot. The following photograph ...
... was taken from a slightly different angle, and I came a bit closer, as well. The name of this third Xysticus species is Xysticus cristatus.
On one of the neighboring ears of the same kind of grass seen in previous shots that show the spiders and their prey, I found a small fly I don't remember seeing before.
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Can't tell you the name of the species but I'm pretty sure that it belongs to the Anthomyzidae family.
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The fly was photographed on the grass that grows by the side of an unpaved road that gets dusty or muddy depending on the weather. Down on the ground, in the middle of that road ...
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... a Messor wasmanni queen was digging.
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At some point, a worker ant of the same species stopped by for a second or two.
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A bit later a small rove beetle entered the scene. With quite a few similar-looking, dark-colored rove beetles around, I'm not sure about the species in this case. Could be something from the genus Carpelimus, but here again, I'm far from being sure about that. The only thing that I'm completely certain about is that the family is Staphylinidae.
The queen shown in this and the previous three photographs had already dug a nice little cavern in the soil, a little cavern that doesn't look so small when compared to the size of the ant.
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On the same road, a couple of meters further, I photographed another Messor wasmanni queen that had recently mated and lost its wings.
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This one just started digging.
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In this wide shot, you can see a bit of the scenery and the friend who was there with me. The ant queen is also present in the foreground, you can find her in the lower part of the picture.
Besides all these photographs, I also recorded a bit of footage while observing the ants at work. I planned to make a series of GIFs using that video material but the GIFs ended up being too big for upload so I decided to create a short video instead.
The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff I found on Pixabay.
Music by Sergio Prosvirini from Pixabay
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About a hundred meters from the place with ants, on the thorny leaves of the Carduus nutans thistle that grows by the side of another road, I photographed a beautiful, iridescent wasp from the Chrysididae family.
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In these two shots, the wasp is cleaning its mouth and antennae, while in the following triptych...
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... you can watch the same insect cleaning its wings and abdomen. The name of the species is Pseudomalus auratus.
This minuscule aphid was photographed on the same plant. It looked like a pale dot embedded in the structure of the leaf with a naked eye. The insect anatomy of that dot was revealed once I took a better look through the macro lens.
Capitophorus elaeagni is the name of this species from the Aphididae family.
A couple of meters from the thistle, I found a Crataegus monogyna flower. There was only one flower on the entire shrub.
Here you can see a detail from the blackberry shrub. Two lovely yellow leaves among the many green ones.
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With the focus back on the thistle, I photographed this Limnophora tigrina, a fly from the Muscidae family.
As I said before, the thistle was - and still is, growing by the side of one of the many narrow roads that lead through Marlera. Most of the roads are just paths with less vegetation than the surroundings but this one is different - it was recently covered with a layer of gravel.
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At some point, a snake appeared from the surrounding shrubs ...
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... and continued moving towards the camera.
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About ten meters from me, the snake changed its direction, ready to hide in the dense vegetation on the other side of the road. Regarding the name of the species, this is the non-venomous Hierophis viridiflavus carbonarius, commonly known as the western whip snake.
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Here you can take a look at the vegetation and the scenery near the place where I photographed the and that started this post. The flowers in the foreground of the shot belong to the Centaurea nigrescens plant.
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Not far from the flowers shown in the previous photograph, I found this grasshopper well-camouflaged in the fresh green grass.
Chorthippus brunneus is the name of this species that appeared in the previous episode as well.
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This is the Helicoverpa armigera, a moth larva that appears in almost every episode.
Toya propinqua also isn't a newcomer to the series.
Unlike the planthopper of the same species that appeared in the seventh episode, the soft pale adult male shown in this and the previous photograph just came out of its old nymphal skin. In the following photograph ...
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... you can take another look at the unpaved road where all the ants seen at the beginning of the post were photographed. The following scene ...
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... was also photographed there. I don't know what's this situation exactly about. It seems that one of the dying reproductive males got attacked by the ants of the same species. Less than a meter from there ...
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... a Messor wasmanni worker was transporting a small snail shell.
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I followed this ant through the macro lens for a couple of minutes, and then ...
... I returned to my car and drove back home.
AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS & THE VIDEO ARE MY WORK - THE END. ... oh-no, wait ... I almost forgot to say the usual few words about Marlera. So, what's this place called Marlera? Well, Marlera is a coastal area situated a couple of kilometers from the village of Liznjan and about five or six kilometers from where I live.The following links will take you to the sites with more information about some of the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Messor_wasmanni
https://wiki.arages.de/index.php?title=Xysticus_kempeleni
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xysticus_cristatus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthomyzidae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomalus_auratus
https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/animalia/arthropoda/insecta/hemiptera/sternorrhyncha/aphidoidea/aphididae/aphidinae/macrosiphini/capitophorus/capitophorus-elaeagni/
https://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds2/insectinfocuslimnophoratigrina.htm
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hierophis_viridiflavus_carbonarius
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/pjduvvlksr
It happened in my garden, on the ground between two rows of tomato plants, a couple of days ago. A wasp was digging a hole and I was recording and photographing the process. It took a couple of hours for the insect to accept my presence, but once it did, I was able to come very close and use the macro lens.
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The wasp in question is Sphex funerarius, a species from the Sphecidae family. The larvae feed on living grasshoppers that the females like the one shown in today's post paralyze and carry to the underground nest. The female stores several grasshoppers in a nest. I saw the wasp dig two nests in my garden but unfortunately, I wasn't there when she brought the paralyzed grasshoppers. Maybe I'll get that moment next year for one of the future posts.
And now, it's time to take a look at the video, the central, probably most attractive part of this thing I prepared for today. Have a good viewing.
SourceWhen it comes to the structure of the wasp's underground nest, there is a corridor, about fifteen centimeters long, with more brood chambers. In each of those chambers, one prey is stored with an egg. The eggs hatch after three or four days and the larvae feed on paralyzed grasshoppers ( locusts and bushcrickets, sometimes adults but more often nymphs) for another eighteen days. The adult males and females feed on nectar.
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AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE VIDEO ARE MY WORK
The following link will take you to the site with more information about the protagonist of this post. I found some stuff about it there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphex_funerarius
The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff I found on Pixabay.
Music by Artem Hramushkin from Pixabay
Music by Sergei Chetvertnykh from Pixabay
Music by Lof Cosmos from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/xsdrxxqcph
Nine days ago, I published a post about plant lice in my yard. I noticed them while removing some weeds, I took a couple of photographs, and then in the evening, I prepared a short report to publish here on Hive. The plant lice were of a species that lives, feeds, and reproduces on the bay laurel shrubs and trees. Since I have a couple of pretty big laurel trees surrounded by small shrubs of the same kind, I have plenty of Lauritrioza alacris plant lice too. At the end of that old post, I stated that I'll probably revisit the same corner of my yard in search of material for a post focused on bay laurels and the insects on and around those plants.
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Yesterday, I spent most of my afternoon around the Laurus nobilis plants, and today is finally the time to say a few words and show a few shots about that backyard photo expedition. In this opening photograph, you can see three Lauritrioza alacris posing on the edge of the leaf. The leaf is deformed due to the activity of these very small insects. The plant lice are nicely aligned which looks very cool, almost rehearsed and staged, in the photograph. In the following shot ...
... I came closer with the macro lens. You can see more details of the insect's exterior anatomy but the depth of field is very shallow so only one of those three plant lice is in focus.
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Lauritrioza alacris causes the edges of leaves to thicken and roll downwards
forming elongated pouches. Those galls can house up to thirty pale nymphs, covered in white waxy particles. In my experience, they prefer soft young leaves. I mean, I didn't find that information on the Internet, is just something I concluded upon my own observations.
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This moth from the Crambidae family was resting on one of the older leaves that haven't been modified by the plant lice activities. It's a fairly small insect but it looks like a giant compared to Lauritrioza alacris. The name of the species is Achyra nudalis. On one of the leaves lower on the plant ...
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... I found a jumping spider. This is an Evarcha jucunda female. The family is Salticidae, of course.
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Here you can take a look at the setting, this year's shoots around the old bay laurel tree.
Phaneroptera nana was well-camouflaged in that environment. This is a nymph, a young, immature bushcricket. In the following photograph ...
... I came closer with the macro lens. In this and the previous shot, I used the flash.
The bushcricket looked better in natural light. And was more distinguishable among the foliage too.
At this point, I was convinced that today's post will be pretty short because after Phaneroptera nana I wasn't able to find any new insect for the next hour or so. And if I didn't take a coffee break, I'll probably wouldn't have anything else to show. While preparing the coffee, a look at the sugar gave me an idea. Why not use something sweet to lure more insects out in the open?
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I prepared a dense, sticky mix of sugar and water ...
... and sprinkled the leaves with that thing.
Half an hour later ...
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... I had plenty of ants to photograph.
When it comes to the name of the species, these are Plagiolepis pygmaea, very small ants from the Formicidae family.
Some minutes later ...
... a paper wasp arrived.
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This is the Polistes gallicus, a very common and widespread species throughout Europe.
Just like Plagiolepis pygmaea shown earlier in the post, the much bigger ants shown in this photograph also belong to the Formicidae family.
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The name of the species is Camponotus lateralis. The semi-dissolved sugar and the semi-translucent ant's body looked very beautiful in natural light.
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To photograph the ants in the shade, I used the flash because it was much easier to get good results that way.
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You can't see it in this photograph, but the three Lauritrioza alacris shown here were performing what looked like some kind of dance. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to convey that through a single shot but fortunately, I can also record footage with my digital camera. In the following video, you'll see plant lice dancing to a funky tune. Not only that, you'll also see some of the insects shown earlier in the post, but they'll be in motion this time. Have a good viewing.
SourceWhen it comes to the visual appeal of the mix of sugar and water I used to attract the insects ...
... most of that stuff ended up spread on the foliage in random, not very photogenic shapes.
Most, but not all.
On one of the leaves close to the ground, I found this interesting little sugar ball. Here you can see it photographed in natural light ...
... but I first tried to do it with the flash.
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In this shot, taken in natural light, you can see a bit of natural sparkle on the top of the sugary thing.
Here you can see a bee that will turn the sugar into a substance with a honey-like taste and consistency. According to what I found on the Internet, to produce real honey, a bee needs nectar.
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In this set of four photographs, you can see the same bee on the same leaf, feeding on the same sugar, but the background is slightly different in three of the shots, and in one of them, the bee is in a slightly different pose.
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In this photograph, I used only the ambient light.
Here you can see another group of Plagiolepis pygmaea workers.
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It was a fairly large group.
AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE VIDEO ARE MY WORK. THE MUSIC IN THE VIDEO IS SOME LOVELY FREE-TO-USE STUFF I FOUND ON PIXABAY.
Music by Keyframe Audio from Pixabay
Music by orangery from Pixabay
Music by Roman Senyk from Pixabay
Music by Zakhar Valaha from Pixabay
Music by Oleksii Kaplunskyi from Pixabay
The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/homoptera/Psylloidea/Lauritrioza_alacris.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurus_nobilis
https://lepiforum.org/wiki/page/Achyra_nudalis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evarcha_jucunda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaneroptera_nana
https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Plagiolepis_pygmaea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes_gallicus
https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Camponotus_lateralis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_honey_bee
Just one more thing I wanted to say now when the video is almost encoded and the post will be published very soon. I uploaded the video through Ecency for the first time today. It was a great, seamless experience. Is great to see how Hive grows and develops. While so many things in the Crypto world feel like empty promises and vapid dreams of getting rich through gambling and speculating, here you can express yourself, and develop your skills and talents through blogging, it's so much more than "Crypto as usual".
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/gxcpeucd
This is just a small video fragment of the much longer post on Hive, a post in which you can see plenty of photographs and read a bit about the beautiful clouds on the 5th of August 2016. Seen in the context of the post this very short video looks much better and makes much more sense. It's just too short to be a standalone thing. For the soundtrack I used some lovely free-to-use music found on Pixabay. And that's it - have a good viewing.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/zwpkghtb
I was driving around the area about ten to twenty kilometers from my hometown and I record a few short fragments of footage along the way. This short video isn't very interesting as a standalone thing, but in combination with the text & photographs of the longer, more elaborate post on Hive, it looks better and it makes more sense. The music is some lovely free-to-use stuff I found on Pixabay.
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/skgkujmz
Hi. This video is too short to be interesting as its own thing. But as a part of a longer and more elaborate post on HIVE, it can be pretty cool. And that's exactly how it is presented. As a fragment of a longer story on HIVE. You'll see a swarm of bees buzzing on the garden wall of one of the houses in the small village called Jurshichi. The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff found on Pixabay. If musicians on HIVE would like to collaborate with me on future posts I'll be very happy. I could use their music and make them beneficiaries of the rewards for the post. I'm offering 20% beneficiaries.
Music by markotopa from Pixabay
Music by Romarecord1973 from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/albgqagu
Hello. In this video, I'm playing, and talking about a video game. Crysis 3 is the title of the game. When I bought a new computer a little less than two years ago, Crysis 3 was installed on it. So, a couple of months later I tried it. And I liked it. Not immediately, though. The start looked a bit dull. The graphics looked great, but it all looked generic and uninspired. But not for long. Soon the environments got complex and beautiful, so I started really enjoying my time in the world of Chrisis 3. I had plenty of things to do, so I stopped playing a couple of days later. And I forgot about the game. Only last week I continued exploring the urban ruins of New York presented in the game, again. Here you'll see another, fairly short segment of the game. But that isn't all. I also visited some real ruins here in my area to add a dose of reality to the gameplay video. I mean, nothing spectacular, just some decaying buildings. Maybe I'm advertising this aspect of the video too much. I also used some cool free-to-use music found on Pixabay.
Music by Anton_Vlasov from Pixabay
Here is the link.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jsfcbwta
Here you can see some stuff recorded near the river called Mirna in the northern part of Istra, the peninsula on whose southern cape I live. Besides the scenery and the flowing water, I'll show you also some insects and one spider.
Their scientific names, or at last a name of the family they belong to, can be seen in the following list that includes the time when they first appear in the video.
00:42 Calopteryx splendens, a damselfly from the Calopterygidae family.
01:18 The Leptophyes boscii bushcricket from the Tettigoniidae family. A nymph is eating its old exoskeleton after finishing the molt.
02:54: Bembecia scopigera, a moth from the Sesiidae family. You can see a mating pair here.
03:46 Coraebus rubi, a beetle from the Buprestidae family.
04:41 Micropodisma salamandra, a grasshopper from the Acrididae family.
05:04 Fruticicola fruticum, a snail from the Camaenidae. This is a small, young specimen.
05:48 Orthetrum coerulescens, a dragonfly from the Libellulidae family.
06:58 A grasshopper from the genus Chorthippus of the Acrididae family. Can't tell you what species exactly. The insect in the video is a male and is singing, or more like playing an instrument which is its own body.
07:04 Platycnemis pennipes, a damselfly from the Platycnemididae family.
08:01 Celypha cespitana, a small moth from the Tortricidae family.
08:10 Oxyopes heterophthalmus, a spider from the Oxyopidae family, has caught the Eysarcoris aeneus, a bug from the Pentatomidae family.
08:20 Ectobius vittiventris, a cockroach from the Ectobiidae family.
The soundtrack is made of some beautiful free-to-use stuff from Pixabay.
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
Music by Daddy_s_Music from Pixabay
Music by geoffharvey from Pixabay
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/xuwvptmi
The video was assembled from pieces of footage recorded on the 13th of July 2016. Some friends and I were harvesting potatoes and three young goats were playing around. It was a great summer day and I had to record some moments of it. Hope you'll enjoy it as I had back then in 2016. The car shown here didn't have a car stereo so the music in the video must have been played from someone's mobile phone. Most of the time my videos are just small fragments of longer and more elaborate posts on Hive and this one isn't an exception. You'll see and read more if you take the time to explore the entire post. Have a great day and a good viewing.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/mpgzdpzg
You can see a harvestman feeding on the moth carcass in this short video. More often than not, my videos are only a small part of a longer post that explains more about the subject. That's the case here as wall. The scientific name of this particular harvestman isPhalangium opilio. If you would like to read a few more words about it, you can take a look at the entire post on Hive.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/xpfmtsum
A quick look at the starlings swarming around the church tower early in the morning. I was standing in my yard. A few more words about all that can be read in the post on Hive, which includes a few more photographs as well.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/srfjfuzs
This is a walk through the open-air market on the outskirts of Zminj, a small town situated in the central part of the Istra peninsula, about fifty kilometers north of my hometown.
While fairly long, the video is just a small fragment of a much longer Market Friday post in which you can see more details and read a bit about the place and the situation.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/bzjtfcgk
More often than not, my videos are just fragments of larger, photography-oriented posts on HIVE. In this case, the video is definitively more than a fragment, but is also a part of the more complex story in which you can see and read more about the mushroom and beetles showed here, and also about some species that you can't see in the video. The main protagonists of this video (and the entire post, really) are the Triplax lepida beetles from the Erotylidae family and the Amanita vaginata mushroom.
Most Erotylidae, commonly known as pleasing fungus beetles, feed on fruiting bodies of various kinds of fungi. Here you can take a look at the everyday activities of one of the species from that family.
The video part of the video is my work, of course, but for the audio, I used some lovely free - to - use stuff found on Pixabay.
Music by Lexin_Music from Pixabay
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/zdrbteda
A flock of starlings landed today on one of the cypress trees behind my house. In this short video, you can see and hear those starlings. As often in my posts, the video is just a segment of a longer post with more text and photographs that can be seen on HIVE. The thing looks better in that context.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/zcqdnkvw
You'll see some spiders in action in this video. Four species, to be more precise. Half, or a bit more, of the video is dedicated to the situation I recorded in the first half of July, in the woods around the city of Pazin, about a şixty kilometers from my hometown. On the large horizontal web of the female Neriene radiata, I saw two males of the same species ... in some kind of interaction that I wasn't able to define. It looked like cannibalism. The active spider was maybe feeding on the immobile one. Or maybe just exploring. I don't know. You can observe the scene yourself and get your own conclusions or theories. Neriene radiata is a species from the Linyphiidae family.
The second species, when it comes to the amount of time dedicated to it in the video, is the Uloborus walckenaerius. You'll see the female consuming its prey on the web.
The third species, the Heliophanus dubius from the Salticidae family, has a very short appearance in the video. The spider is eating a small fragment of something, while simultaneously signaling with its pedipalps to the lens of the camera.
Only a short fragment of the video is dedicated to the fourth species. The Linyphia triangularis is another species from the Linyphiidae family. In the video, you'll see a female feeding. The prey is a very small insect. An aphid or whitefly, something like that.
The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff, downloaded from Pixabay.
Music by Lexin_Music from Pixabay
Music by penguinmusic from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/byzirjea
Seven minutes of butterflies feeding and flying around the tiny but nectar-rich flowers of the lavender. I recorded this video today in the northern, inland part of Istra, the peninsula on which I live. About ninety kilometers from my hometown by the sea.
In the video, you'll see the following species.
- Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius)
- Large Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus)
- Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera )
- Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)
- Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma)
The music in the video is some beautiful, free - to use stuff that I found on Pixabay.
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jciqceoy
A video diary made of the footage that I recorded today in the woods. The video is ment to be a part of the longer and more elaborate post on HIVE. It looks much better in that context than as a standalone thing.
The music in the video is some beautiful free stuff that I found on Pixabay.
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/rcvkufnv
A slow motion video of Marbled White butterflies feeding on the tiny flowers of the Knautia arvensis plant. I recorded it a couple of hours ago. The video looks slightly better combined with a few more photographs and a bit of text, as a part of the post on hive, than as a standalone thing. The music is some free stuff that I found on Pixabay.
Music by Olexy from Pixabay
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/iknxpoyh
A couple of days ago, while photographing some other stuff in my garden, I noticed these minuscule green larvae on the leaves of one of the fig trees in my garden. I already photographed this species, adults, larvae, and everything in between a couple of years ago, so this time I decided to do something different. This time I didn't see adult insects around, so I concentrated my focus on the larvae. And since I already have plenty of photographs, I thought that some video footage could be a good idea. The trouble with the larvae is that they are pretty inactive and boring when it comes to video. They are motionless like little limpets busy sucking the sap most of the time. So I picked one of the infested leaves and put it on the lawn, moving the larvae from the comfortable shade out in the sun. At that point, they started crawling around, and I filmed this short video. I have never seen them walking before. It was a cool scene, These small insects look kinda cartoonish and pretty cute. A bit like a cartoonish version of a trilobite or something like that. After the filming, I put the leaf back on the tree, so that they can find another leaf to feed on. These little pests don't cause major problems to the tree.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jzxfyhur
A quick look at the frogs siging in the pond. The video looks better as a part of a longer post on HIVE, than as a standalone thing.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/kmknesjd
After buying a new, more powerful computer some months ago, I finally started playing a good-looking video game after more than decade-long abstinence. The last game I played was TES: Oblivion, and it was a frustrating experience because my computer back then wasn't able to run the game properly. After many years, I'm enjoying a game again. It's a first-person shooter, not my favorite genre, but Crysis 3 looks great and I have plenty of fun. This is only the first, introductory video. I'm planning to do two or three more as my gaming proceeds. 😀Hope that my spoken English will improve till the next video. Have a good viewing.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/tzwqmmuj
A convoy of trucks and vans passing near my house. It looks and sounds like some kind of celebration.
A truck driver wedding or something like that. But it was a protest march, actually. A protest drive through
small towns and villages. As often is case with my videos here on 3Speak, this doesn't look very interesting
as a stendalone thing, but in the context of the entire post on HIVE, it can be fairly attractive.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jcwdwzps
While rambling around the woods and meadows in search of interesting stuff to photograph, I also record short videos from time to time. When I accumulate enough footage, usually about 15 - 25 minutes, it's time to organize that stuff in a relatively coherent video and put it on 3Speak ... to stay there, hopefully forever.
I recorded the insects you'll see in the video, during the last month. Have a good viewing. :)
In the following text, you'll find the names of the species, or just families when I wasn't able to find the exact species. As always in this series, the insects are listed in order in which they appear in the video ... from first to the last, from the start to the end.
00 : 00 - 00 : 37 The Hipparchia statilinus butterfly is feeding on the small flowers of the Eryngium campestre plant. These butterflies like dry and sunny habitats. The larvae feed on various grasses from the Poaceae family.
00 : 37 - 00 : 52 The Machimus setibarbus robber fly (Asilidae family) has caught some minuscule black wasp on the Euphorbia cyparissias plant that grows on the stony terrain near the sea.
00 : 52 - 01 : 11 The Sympetrum vulgatum dragonfly on the dry straw of grass. At one point, the insect flies away ... and then returns.
01 : 11 - 03 : 41 Some small, vividly yellow caterpillar of an inchworm type is feeding on the Euphorbia cyparissias. This is the larva of some moth from the Geometridae family. I don't know the exact species.
03 : 41 - 04 : 40 The larva of some moth from the Psychidae family. Moths from these family are commonly known as the bagworm moths.
04 : 40 - 07 : 34 The Eupholidoptera schmidti bush - crickets feeding and singing on the blackberry shrubs near the sea.
07 : 34 - 10 : 30 This scene revolves around the small pool of water in between the three main branches of some old oak tree. Here you can see the shiny green beetle from the Geotrupidae family - the Trypocopris vernalis, and the Cyclophora puppillaria, a well camouflaged moth from the Geometridae family. The moth is just resting on the fallen leaves, while the beetles are climbing along the branches and feeding on the rotting material in the shallow pool.
10 : 30 - 10 : 59 Here you can see some small grasshopper nymph, I don't know the species, and an adult green - brown version of the Omocestus rufipes grasshopper that can come in a couple of different color combinations.
10 : 59 - 11 : 12 Beautiful, alien - like nymph of the Empusa pennata mantis.
11 : 12 - 11 : 23 Another grasshopper nymph resting on the dried out grass. I don't know the species.
11 : 23 - 11 : 37 In this short excerpt, you can see two butterfly species from the Lycaenidae family feeding on the Eryngium campestre plant. Quite a few similar looking butterflies from this family are present in the area, so I can't tell you the exact names here.
11 : 37 - 11 : 47 The Hipparchia statilinus again! This time, the butterfly is feeding near the country lane in between two small villages, about 40 kilometers from where I live. The cars are passing by.
11 : 47 - 12 : 03 Cylindromyia bicolor, an interesting fly from the Tachinidae family.
12 : 03 - 15 : 17 Some wasp, I have no idea about the species, is feeding on the tiny flowers of the Crithmum maritimum plant that grows among the pebbles very close to the sea. Today, while preparing the post, I learned that this edible, very tasty and aromatic plant is commonly known as the rock samphire or the sea fennel in English.
15 : 17 - 16 : 16 This is the female of the Caliscelis bonellii planthopper. The males of this Mediterranean species that inhabits stony areas looks pretty different.
16 : 16 - 16 : 28 The Machimus setibarbus again! This time, the robber fly has caught a green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata)
16 : 28 - 17 : 01 The Nymph of Dicranocephalus agilis bug is feeding on sap of the cypress spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias)
17 : 01 - 17 : 27 An adult Dicranocephalus agilis bug is resting on the grass near the cypress spurge.
17 : 27 - 17 : 45 Carpocoris pudicus bugs. As you can see on this short excerpt, the color of this species can vary slightly.
17 : 45 - 17 : 49 A brown lacewing. Micromus angulatus is the name of the species.
17 : 49 - 18 : 11 Locusta migratoria grasshoppers mating.
18 : 11 - 18 : 55 The well camouflaged Oedaleus decorus grasshopper on the dry meadow near the sea.
18 : 55 - 18 : 59 Neozephyrus quercus butterfly feeding on the Crithmum maritimum plant.
18 : 59 - 19 : 17 The silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia) resting on the forest floor.
19 : 17 - 24 : 03 Female Maniola jurtina butterfly feeding and flying around the Eryngium Amethystinum plants. Some wasps, bees, and flies can also be seen flying in this relatively long stretch of the video.
24 : 03 - THE END Some cute, furry flies from Bombyliidae family, feeding on the same plant, the Eryngium Amethystinum on the meadow near the sea.
And that's all. Hope you enjoyed this mini - documentary. Have a good day, or night, wherever on the planet you are. As always in these posts on HIVE, the video is my work - THE END.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/tmwjlvah
While walking around coastal meadows in search for interesting stuff to put on photographs, I usually record short videos from time to time. When I accumulate enough of this video material, usually about 15 - 25 minutes of close up look at the natural world, it's time to organize that stuff in a relatively coherent video and put it on 3Speak ... to stay there, hopefully forever.
I recorded the beauty and interesting behaviors of the species you'll see in the video, during the last 10 days, or so. Have a good viewing. :)
In the following text, you'll find the names of the species, or just families when I wasn't able to find the exact species, that you'll see, or already saw in the video ... as always in this series, the insects and spiders are listed in order in which they appear in the video ... from first to the last, from the start to the end.
00 : 00 - 02:12 Courtship of the brown Argus butterflies (Aricia agestis)
02:12 - 04:36 A look at the large web of the Argiope lobata spider. You can see the big, very distinctive looking female and the small, inconspicuous male here. The sexual dimorphism is very pronaunced in this species, male and female look like two completely different kinds of spider. I recorded this footage in the evening, while the summer storm was approaching, soon after the events you'll see or saw in the video, strong wind started to blow, and heavy rain fell on spiders and everything.
04:36 - 06:40 In this segment of the video, you'll see (or you just saw) a bunch of grasshopper species present on these meadows. I found out the names of some species, but not of all.
Black grasshopper that appears in is the Omocestus rufipes, the color in this species vary, this grasshopper is elegantly black with some red details, but they can also come in green, brown, and green - brown variations. In you can see (although kind of just barely) the well camouflaged cone-headed grasshopper Acrida ungarica. It looks like a creature made of dried out grass. In the rest of this segment, you can see some nymphs and some adults of species that I can't name ... yet.
06:40 - 12:18 The material for this his whole chapter was recorded on the same day, in approximately one hour, while sitting by an "island" of Mentha longifolia plants in the middle of the meadow.
The little black bees with vivid red abdomen are the Sphecodes albilabris. I don't know the name of the moth, the small wasp and another, slightly bigger bee species with distinctively elongated abdomen that appear in this segment of the video. Here, in 11:09 - 11:12 exactly, you can also see an interesting bee - hunter wasp, the Philanthus triangulum, commonly known as European beewolf. These solitary wasps feed on nectar as adults, but adult females hunt the bees that serve as a canned food for the growing larvae.
12:18 - 13:44 The Tylopsis lilifolia bush - crickets (Tettigoniidae family) that come in a nice variety of greens and browns. Here you can see a couple of variations camouflaged on various vegetation.
13:44 - 14:04 The minuscule Kochiura aulica, a spider from the Theridiidae family, has caught some shiny leaf beetle.
14:04 - 14:32 Some big, fat and pretty colorful bush - cricket (Tettigoniidae family). I don't know the exact species.
14:32 - 15:16 Argiope lobata spiders again. The female has caught some big grasshoppers, and that makes the scene look kind of spectacular. This was recorded a couple of days after the storm. The web was rebuilt practically in the same place, give or take 10 - 20 centimeters.
15:16 - 15:42 The colorful Apion frumentarium weevil.
15:42 - 16:02 The Agalmatium bilobum planthopper.
16:02 - 16:35 The colorful red - white - violet version of the Thomisus onustus crab spider that comes in a nice variety of colors, the colors and markings inside this species can vary so much that it's easy to confuse two Thomisus onustus spiders for two different related species.
16:35 - 20:02 Some small flies, I don't know anything about them - noticed then for the first time a few days ago, are defending their territory on the branch of the young elm tree. There is a wet spot on the branch where the sap comes out of the plant, it's like a little feeding pool, and the flies defend it. First, you can see them successfully chasing some big black wasp.
Then one single fly tries to harass the Polistes gallicus paper wasp - quite unsuccessfully this time.
Finally, with no other insects around the pool, the flies fight among each other.
I never observed this behavior, and recording this was a great fun ... although quite difficult because I was crouched in a very uncomfortable semi - crouched position under the lower branches of a small tree.
20:02 - 21:29 Some spiders from the genus Cheiracanthium of the Miturgidae (Prowling Spiders) family, don't know the exact species, are mating and then resting inside the sack made by folding and stitching the leaves of the Chenopodium plant.
21:29 - THE END Plebejus argus butterflies feeding and flying around the Knautia arvensis flowers. Some minuscule, aggressive ants also appear in this segment. They are trying to chase the butterflies away from time to time.
And that's all. :) Hope you enjoyed this mini - documentary of mine. As always in these posts on HIVE, the video is my work - THE END.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/znjkiofa
While rambling around woods & meadows and taking photographs, in the last month or so, I recorded some short videos along the way ... and now ... here ... I organized them in the third compilation of this series - Have a good viewing.
Here are the names of the species, or just families when I wasn't able to find the exact species, that you'll see, or already saw in the video ... as always in this series, the insects and spiders are listed in order in which they appear in the video ... from first to the last, from the start to the end.
- The amber colored flea beetles Aphthona cyparissiae, and their considerably smaller relatives, the Aphthona euphorbiae flea beetles, feeding on the cypress spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias), recorded on the coastal terrain covered with shrubs and meadows. Both species are leaf beetles - Chrysomelidae family. 00:00 - 02:34
- The shiny blue beetle from the genus Cryptocephalus of the Chrysomelidae family is resting on the top of some Plantago plant. I'm not sure about the exact species because quite a few similar looking leaf beetles from this genus are present in the area. This could easily be the relatively rare (here, at least) blue version of the usually metallic green Cryptocephalus aureolus, or a blue version of some related species. Recorded on the coastal terrain covered with shrubs and meadows. 02:34 - 03:04
- The Coptocephala scopolina leaf beetle on the straw of dried out grass, recorded on the meadow very close to the sea. 03:04 - 05:18
- The mammoth wasp (Megascolia maculata) is feeding on the Blackberry flowers. Recorded on the shrubs that grow by the dusty road along the sea. 05:18 - 07:03
- The white variation of the Thomisus onustus crab spider, that can come in a nice variety of colors, is waiting in ambush on the wild onion flowers. 07:03 - 07:14
- The Molobratia teutonus robber fly (Asilidae family). First, you can see the fly resting on the Blackberry shrub, maybe waiting in ambush ... and then, you can see the predatory fly with its prey ... the Vespula vulgaris paper wasp, in this case. 07:14 - 07:48
- The beautiful, and very small, Eteobalea isabellella moth on the vegetation that grows from the cracks in between coastal rocks. 07:48 - 08:02
- Some minuscule shiny wasp ... doing something, don't know exactly what, around the Coraebus rubi jewel beetle ... maybe the wasp is a parasitic one, but who knows, it's the absolutely first time that I'm observing this behavior. Never saw it, never read about it. Recorded in the woods, in the inland area, about 15 kilometers from my seaside place. 08:02 - 08:27
- The Eupithecia centaureata, a small moth from the Geometridae family, is resting on the Blackberry shrub near the sea. 08:27 - 08:39
- The small, young nymphs of the big Anacridium aegyptium grasshopper. Recorded on the shrubs near the sea. 08:39 - 09:10
- The larva of some sawfly species, don't know which one exactly, is feeding on the Picris hieracioides plant that grows on the meadows near the sea. 09:10 - 09: 49
- Some wild bee, don't know the species, is resting on the dried out grass of the coastal meadow. 09:49 - 10:01
- The nymph of the Odontotarsus purpureolineatus bug, recorded on some dried out plant near the sea. 10:01 - 11:48
- The Ephippiger discoidalis, a saddle-backed bush cricket species (Ephippiger genus of the Tettigoniidae family) is feeding on the flowers of the golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus) that grows on the coastal meadows. 11:48 - 12:04
- The female of the Oxyopes lineatus lynx spider (Oxyopidae family) is guarding her cocoon attached to the Asparagus acutifolius plant. Recorded in the inland woods, about 30 kilometers from the sea. 12:04 - 12:28
- The common straw grasshopper, Euchorthippus declivus, is chewing the straw of still green grass on the inland meadow surrounded by woods, about 20 kilometers from where I live. 12:28 - 12:49
- The minuscule, spiky Hispa testacea leaf beetle, that feeds and reproduces on various rockrose (Cistus) plants. 12:49 - 13:08
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A mating pair of Camptopus lateralis bugs from the Alydidae family. 13:08
-
13:42
-
Two species of cicada are mixed in this relatively long segment of the video. The Cicada orni are singing on the cypress trees near the sea ... and the Lyristes plebejus are mating on the ground, in the pine forest just outside the city. 13:42 - 18:41
- The beautifully designed web of the Araneus diadematuspider, high on the evergreen oak, in the forest near the sea. 18:41 - 18:58
- Some small blue butterfly (genus Polyommatus of the Lycaenidae family), don't know the exact species because quite a few very similar species are present in the area. 18:58 - 19:18
- Some very small jumping spider, can't tell you the name of the species, saw it for the first time a few days ago at the edge of the forest, about 20 kilometers inland from my seaside town. 19:18 - 19:38
- The gathering of the masked bees (Hylaeus pictipes) at the end of the day. They rest in big groups on the ears of grass. 19:38 - THE END
And that's all, as always in these posts on HIVE, the video is my work.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/kkghpdns
A short walk through an abandoned military area in the woods. A video about the simple pleasures of life ... exploring, sniffing around, observing the nature and being happy only becouse you are alive on this pretty cool planet.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/rbqeoqsk
Just a quick look at some flowers and butterflies by the road. A short stop on the way back from the city, a break to celebrate the ordinary summer day, in an ordinary human life.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/efzpflrt
Here are the names of the species, or just families when I wasn't able to find the exact species, that you'll see, or already saw in the video ... as always in this series, the insects and spiders are listed in order in which they appear in the video ... from first to the last, from the start to the end.
- The juvenile Neoscona adianta spider, much smaller and with different colors & markings than the adults, is feeding on some leafhopper's nymph caught in the cobweb. 00:00 - 00:33
- The Pseudocleonus cinereus weevil is chewing the juicy flowers of the Lathyrus sylvestris plant ... related to the cultivated pea. 00:33 - 00:49
- The minuscule Macrotylus paykulli bug is feeding on the large leaf of the Dittrichia viscosa plant. 00:49 - 03:08
- The Tropinota squalida beetles are mating on the top of the Plantago lanceolata plant. 03:08 - 03:13
- The Synema globosum crab spider has caught an ant ... it's early in the morning, plenty of dew all around the meadow, and the ant somehow ended up caught inside a droplet of water. 03:13 - 03:29
- Some very small fly, probably from the Drosophilidae family ... is feeding on some particles found on the leaf of the Dittrichia viscosa plant. 03:29 - 04:16
- A large group of minuscule pollen beetles, the Brassicogethes aeneus, is feeding on the big composite flower of the Carduus nutans thistle. 04:16 - 06:58
- An adult Neoscona adianta spider has caught a pretty big nymph of the marbled bush - cricket. 06:58 - 07:18
- Crematogaster melanogaster ants are dismantling the dead bee. 07:18 - 07:31
- Some little cockroach is feeding on the edible carpet made of Helichrysum italicum flowers. I don't know the exact species, but it is definitely pretty different from the cockroaches found in urban areas. 07:31 - 07:52
- Some small larva, and here again can't tell you the exact species, has built a casing from small dry fragments fallen from the Erica arborea shrub ... and now, well hidden & protected, is feeding on the Helichrysum italicum that grows underneath. 07:52 - 09:04
- The mating ritual of the rock bristletails, some species of the fascinating, evolutionary primitive insects from the Meinertellidae family. 09:04 - 09:37
- A group of Coptosoma scutellatum bugs. Some of them are mating. 09:37 - 10:22
- Some small predatory fly from the Asilidae family has caught a small bug. 10:22 - 10:35
- Some minuscule beetle from the Anthicidae family is resting and cleaning its leg on the interesting sprout of the reed that grows near the pool of brackish water near the sea. Beetles from this relatively obscure family are commonly known as antlike flower beetles. This video - fragment was recorded at dusk. 10:35 - 11:14
- The Phosphuga atrata carrion beetle is enjoying some insect remains on the dusty terrain near the sea. I recorded this final video - fragment at night ... with a little help of the head lamp on my forehead. 11:16 - THE END
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/nobngwhl
There is a pool, some kind of shallow seasonal pond, near the sea ... only a narow embankment made of pebbles divides it from the sea. It gets filled with rain and the sea water brought by the wind and big waves ... and is inhabitet by an interesting mix of sea & freshwater animals. Now, in the summer, the water evaporates completely, leaving an interesting, desert - like lendscape with many interesting biological surprises ... this is na video about them :) have a good viewing.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/zcjicdlq
Justa a short, slow motion look at a group of seagull at sea.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jygosdkh
Here are the names of the species, or just families when I wasn't able to find the exact species, that appear in the video, in the order in which they appear - from first to the last, from the start to the end.
- The Meloe violaceus blister beetle is chewing some juicy leaves, surrounded by dry and fibrous grass on the meadow near the sea.
- A jumping spider, I don't know the exact species because quite a few similar looking ones are present in the area ... but the family is Salticidae for sure. This small spider is signaling with its pedipalps.
- The moth from the Pyralidae family is feeding on nectar of the Euphorbia cyparissias plant, on the meadow near the sea.
- Some small bee from the Megachilidae family is building a big underground nest.
- A colorful spider from the Araneidae family is working on his web.
- Mating of the Coccinella septempunctata lady beetles.
- The Zeuzera pyrina moth.
- A swarm of Malacosoma castrense caterpillars.
- Mating of the minuscule Mecinus pyraster weevil.
- The Tibellus oblongus spider has caught a small, recently hatched nymph of the Pholidoptera griseoaptera bush - cricket.
- A group of shiny, colorful Psilothrix viridicoerulea beetles that, in this segment of the video, feed on pollen of the Ranunculus bulbosus flower.
- A mating pair of Scatophaga stercoraria flies.
- A mating pair of Geomyza tripunctata flies.
- The big, furry caterpillar of the Lasiocampa Trifolii moth is chewing some clover on the coastal meadow.
- Just a silhouette of some fly resting on some dried out plant in the evening - not much action here.
- Mating of the Longitarsus anchusae flea beetles.
- It looks like an aftermath of some ant battle, the big ant is a Formica fusca warrior.
- Mating of the Dolycoris baccarum shield bugs.
- The Xysticus kempeleni crab spider has caught a Formica fusca ant.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/kvtgzxlt
A look at the slightly creepy interior of an abandoned old church at the edge of the woods. St. Mary of Chestnuts was built in 1197 along the important ancient road, that led from the coast inland and back. This is a small, unpaved road now, that leads through the woods and meadows, far from important routes of today.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/jpijwzcm
A look at the wild boar family ... the video starts with a bunch of extremely cute piglets ... and then the mother arrives :) ... blackbirds are singing all the way, like they knew I don't know how to create good music, and I really needed a soundtrack ... I'm very grateful to those pigs and birds for letting me record this video. As most of my videos, this is just a small fragment of a much longer post on HIVE, and it's more interesting when seen in that context.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/ngtrbalm
This video wasn't actually recorded as a video, but put together from a series of shots I took some hours ago in the muddy bay near the small village called Liznjan, on the southern end of the Istra peninsula in the Northern Adriatic. You can see two species of birds here, the Eurasian oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) and the Black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus). Just like most of my other videos, this is just a small fragment of the longer post on HIVE, and there among some more still images, you can find also more information about these two species.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/uncarqxe
A look at the social behavior of the Pine processionary caterpillars. Just like most of my videos, this makes much more sense as a part of the considerably longer article on HIVE, than as a standalone thing. You can find more information about this interesting species if you read the post.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=borjan/szzchepq
... ah, nothing special ... just a short look at the springtime snow in my seaside, Mediterranean area that usually gets a bit of snow only once in a decade in the coldest winters ... so, although the snow today looked only like a slightly stronger frost in the fields, and the only spectacle was watching the dancing snowflakes above our heads, nonetheless this was an exceptional day that kind of deserved a video :)