The Calm Before….

The Swarm!

I saw my cat race up into a small tree…

Nooooo I nearly screamed, no Luna – leave the birds alone…

Obviously she completely ignored me, largely because she enjoys chasing things that move, but of course also because she’s a cat; she doesn’t tend to enter into extended existential dialogue with me about the intrinsic gravity of personal identity and why she does what she does

So I raced into the tree to save whatever poor feathered creature was about to have a nasty shock….

(Birds huh? Technically a form of living dinosaur, therefore descended from some of the largest and most fearsome animals ever to roam the planet, now -by and large- small creatures that like to sing to each other first thing in the morning !!)

Anyway

That tree had no bird in it

I’m not sure who was more keen to flee, me or the cat….

I’ve never seen a swarm of bees before… and I’m not sure that a few inches away is the best position to start from!

It was an awkward angle, I had to use a flash (not my strongest skill by a long way) and frankly I was quite scared whilst taking it! I’m not allergic to bees… but equally I didn’t want to find out what happens if you get stung several hundred times either.

But I’ve never let personal safety get in the way of my photography, and I wasn’t going to start now!

Which got me thinking… How stupid is stupid? It seems a swarm of bees is pretty docile, well unless they perceive a threat… So perhaps I was rash to fret.. But my knowledge of swarming bees was obtained only after the shot..

So I guess I was worried about nothing, but still…

What risks would you take to capture a shot of something you’ve never seen before?

I’ve been on this planet for a fair few decades now, I’ve never seen a swarm before, and perhaps I might not again, so taking a photograph was -for me- the only safe option.

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