Yellow Jacket
suddenly coming to life after 5 month
A couple days ago, my husband replanted all the geraniums and other plants, cutting them and adding new soil - when we bumped into what we thought was a dead yellow jacket among the old flower pots... Instead of throwing her away, I put her in a little cappuccino cup with some cling film over it and put it aside for later. My thought was to take some "stacked" super macro images of her body.
this morning
as i came home from work, and the sun was already up, shining into our kitchen, i thought of the yellow jacket, and prepared the camera and macro lens on a mini tripod etc, in order to take stacked images... All of the sudden, the little creature started to move. I was completely surprized, almost hocked - because, well... i thought she was dead. After all, it must have been 5 month she dwelled ...
I am trying to form words around the feeling that came over me - because it literally
hit me, unexpected and strong. The first thing that sprung into my mind was, how terrible and deeply sorry i felt for this little creature; a "thing/ an object" i thought was dead since long time,
now all of the sudden
sprung to life after all this time
, yet got captured in a cup and sealed with cling film for several days. This sudden spark of life, felt incredible precious ! From having thought she was a dead object to be studied in fine detail... it all seemed so not important within seconds.
But - I didn't know how to help her to strength, really. (Regardless how i formulated my question in internet search engines - all i got back - was how to
kill yellow jackets - but not how to nurture a weak individual one.
I took some drops of water mixed with sugar, as well put a micro amount of ground meat near by her... but I am afraid it didn't really help her in the long run... After a half day, she barely moved in the end and i let her go from the balcony.
So, while she was alive, i took
handheld, simple images from a greater distance.
Normally (as a dead insect) i would have fixated her, and then made 150+ images with the camera on a tripod, where the focus moves in every single photo with a tiny, tiny amount backwards. Then you "stack" all images into one - but only the sharp areas are added together. That way you can achieve a much greater in depth sharp image - revealing the super fine details in insects (which you normally can't get in just taking a single macro image).
When I, very gently, came closer with my finger towards her, she would raise her front right arm and touch my finger...
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