u/Bug_Photographer

This rather gorgeous butterfly is a male scarce copper (Lycaena virgaureae) which I found on a tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) on the side of a small logger road outside Härnösand, Sweden in July.

The Dutch name for this species however is "morgenrood" which translates into morning red - as in the red of the sun at dawn.

I've discovered that the dill flowers attract a lot of hoverflies like this female pale-saddled Leucozona (Leucozona glaucia) which makes for easy shooting as the dill is about as high as I am tall.

And as an added bonus, everything smells just wonderful of dill!

For details on camera/lens/settings used for the shot plus exact location where it was taken, please look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55462138624/

The scientific name for this nice and fairly large longhorn beetle is Lepturobosca virens. It lacks an English name, but translating the Swedish one (grön blombock) gives us "green flower longhorn". This particular one was muching pollen on a meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria).

When I closed in there were a whole bunch of flies, including several hoverflies around it, but they all soon left, leaving the beetle alone in front of the lens.

For links to five more shots of this guy plus details on camera/lens/settings used for the shot, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55436375097/

I celebrated my mom's birthday this Sunday at her summer house in Värmdö located in the inner archipelago of Stockholm, Sweden.

With the weather being sort of cloudy, we went for a walk around the neighbourhood and ended up in a very small island (connected by bridge) where we sometimes go for a swim. The others stood in a group and talked whil I snuck around hoping to find something interesting to photograph.

And did I. By now, the clouds had parted and there was full on sun and there, on this dark lichen-covered rockside angled perfectly towards the sun (ie, the hottest place there) I spotted a large dragonfly which just landed!

Engaging my finest ninja-sneak mode, I crept/climbed closer and took a photo every time I got a little closer until it took off and disappeared over the tall reeds.

Looking closer at my photos, I realised I hade photographed a lesser emperor (Anax parthenope)!

The "lesser" here doesn't mean this is a small species - it's just smaller than the blue emperor (A. imperator) which is Sweden's largest species.

This is my first emperor dragonfly of any kind and it's a very new speceis for Sweden with the first specimen spotted in the country as late as 2010. It has spread up along the east coast and the Stockholm archipelago is about as far north as they have gotten these days.

For exact location plus details on camera/lens/settings used, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55423065953/

Among the various visitors on the grape hyacinths (Muscari sp.) in front of the house back in late April, this is a male large bee-fly (Bombylius major).

For details on camera/lens/settings used for this shot plus links to another shot of him and one of the female, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55413830530/

A bonus catch when looking for dune tiger beetles in the Nedre Mjällådalen nature reserve near Härnösand, Sweden, was this male woodland jumping spider (Evarcha falcata) with its emerald green eyes which helpfully jumped onto a twig which was lying in the sand.

I only managed a couple of shots (this one is at 2:1 mag) before he decided to teleport away out of sight like they do.

For details on camera/lens/settings used for the shot plus exact location (down to a couple of meters), please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55409226938/

I was standing on grassy ground growing out over water at the Nedre dammen pond in Tyresta National Park, trying to photograph a dragonfly while also very much trying to not fall into the water when this male fen raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) came running over the water and stopped in the grass right next to my feet.

This is only my second find of this species which is the largest spider species in Sweden so I was very pleased with him being totally cool with me being there. I had to fold away the long grass to get the camera down to him and didn't move at all. I even had time for a lens change to get a couple of shots with the MP-E65 lens as well before being satisfied.

With this being a guy, the abdomen is way smaller than on the females, but otherwise this was absolutely a full-grown adult

There is a small risk this is a raft spider (D. fimbriatus), but I'm still leaning towards plantarius.

For details on camera/lens/settings plus exact location, please look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55406588816/

Here are two shots of of a ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus) which was chilling on the leaf of a heartleaf ox-eye (Telekia speciosa) in my mother-in-law's garden on a July (of 2026) visit.

The ringlet is quite possibly the most common butterfly in Sweden - and yet most people are completely unaware of it's existence which is a shame as despite their very basic colouration, they are quite beautiful.

Details on camera/lens/settings used for the shot can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55406588836/

I'm spending a couple of weeks in Härnösand, fairly far north in Sweden, about 3 km / 2 miles from where Hernö Gin have their destillery, but today I stumbled on a bottle of gin from Barsebäck Bränneri in the south of Sweden. Supposedly, this one has notes of cardamom and bay leaf.

The labeling is double-sided and the shape of the bottle and the vertical stripes is possibly a reference to what Barsebäck is most known for in Sweden - the nuclear power plant with its square cooling towers.

I found this female four-banded flower bee (Anthophora quadrimaculata) geting in early before the European wool carder bees (Anthidium manicatum) claim it.

The carder bee males are erxtremely protective of "his" plant and will chase this one away wihout hesitation, but today, the carder bees hadn't gotten there so this one was zipping around from flower to flower.

For details on camera/lens/settings used for this shot, pleas have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55387083331/

You're looking at a female Welsh clearwing (Synanthedon scoliaeformis) in the process of laying her eggs on a birch tree.

This is a diurnal moth and like all clearwings, it is mimicking wasps. While most of them try to look like eusocial wasps and hornets, this one instead mimicks scoliid wasps (ie mammooth wasps).

She certainly took her time ovipositing - in fact, I took a whole bunch of shots before leaving her to photograph other stuff and when I returned, she was still at it. This species lay their eggs on the birch and when the egg hatch, the caterpillars burrow into the tree and live inside it between the bark and the wood for 2-3 years before emerging as adults.

If you zoom in on the head, you'll notice that the white marking isn't part of the eye even tough it looks a bit like the moth has manga eyes or something.

Also, the way she has bent her abdomen here, make me think she looks a bit like a shrimp, no?

For technical details for the shot plus exact location, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55375477651/

Hopefully, this doesn't count as a lootbox post since it isn't about an actual lootbox, but if it is considered that anyways - I'm sorry Mr. Moderator. This was more about the actual existence of this promotion in the first place.

I did a game on my old alt-account last week (last match played on the account was like a moth ago) and did rather well in the match. And then when I got back to port this thing popped up.

Make any purchase and get an equal chance of a GC, Agincourt, Gremy, Kamikaze - or Marblehead as a gift! My first thought was that this had to be skewed so you alway get the Marblehead, but it did say equal chance so what the hell.

So I bought a day of premium time and lo and behold - suddenly a Kamikaze popped up in port! Now I already have a Fūjin on my actual account, but this still has to have used up all my luck for this year right?

Has anybody else seen this one?

On first glance, this blue pair of variable bluets (Coenagrion pulchellum) look like they are two males which for obvious reasons won't result in a very successful mating.

But what is actually happening is that the one on the right is an androchrome female - a female which has the colouration of a male.

I came across these two right at the southern end of the Nedre dammen pond in Tyresta National Park just south of Stockholm, Sweden, on a mid-June visit.

For exact location plus details on what camera/lens/settings were used, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55353641127/

Everything still seem to work like it should exacept I can't find the power adapter (had a universal one since it was bought from Japan).

I made yet another trip to Havtornsudd point on the Gålö peninsula in the inner archipelago of Stockholm, Sweden on May 2nd (of 2026).

It was a bit windy and not that much out and about to shoot, but like the last time, the star of the show was a green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris). Based on the size of the mandibles being large but not huge, I'm thinking this is a female and she stayed nice and still for surprisingly long for me. This shot was at 1.5:1 magnification.

For details on camera/lens/settings used for this shot, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55342749228/

Closeup on the cool-looking eyes on a giant pale owl butterfly (Caligo memnon) at the Haga Ocean butterfly house in Solna, Sweden, back in late September of 2024.

For details on camera/lens/settings, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55342749238/

Check out the moustache on this pearly heath (Coenonympha arcania) from Åva-Stensjödal in Tyresta National Park, Sweden.

To me it is impressive on nearly the level of Hollywood's best moustache - Sam Elliott!

For details on camera/lens/settings used for this shot plus exact location where it was taken, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55335052886/

New ladybug for me! Say hello to a thirteen-spot ladybeetle (Hippodamia tredecimpunctata) which I found at the Hemmesta sjöäng wetland in Värmdö, Sweden. It was climbing up blades of grass and then taking flight - but only like 20 or 30 cm each time and then running up the next blade and repeating the process so it was a bit tricky to get a clear shot.

Apparently this species is typically found in marshes and wetlands. The species is also found in North America.

For details on camera/lens/settings used plus exact location, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55330773705/

This is a 2:1 magnification photo of a green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris) from Tyresta by in Tyresta National Park, just south of Stockholm, Sweden.

These guys are normally very skittish and also extremely good at runing away which means I'm rather pleased with getting this shot at 2:1 magnification as that means the front glass of the lens was 62 mm / 2.4" from the beetle.

For details on camera/lens/settings used for the shot plus exact location, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55318719202/

The large red damsel (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) is one of the first damselflies to begin flying in spring up here in Sweden.

I found this particular one and a whole slew of other damsels and dragons on a June 1st visit to Åva-Stensjödal in Tyresta National Park, Sweden.

I saw at least three species of damsel (and got shots of two of them), five species of dragonfly (including one I've never shot before), Sweden's largest spider and more - in just 95 minutes!

For details on camera/lens/settings plus exact location, please have a look here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/55311938288/