Monday, October 02, 2006

Return Of The Millennium Bug

Turning Over A New Leaf



Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

No, there's no need to panic about the millennium bug - and no need to call in the computer boffins, either.

I was photographing this orchid in the morning sun, when I noticed the tiny shadow under the leaf in the right-hand corner of the first picture. At first I thought it was dust, then I looked closer and realised the ``shadow'' was moving.

It was actually the shadow cast by a bug that was climbing across the leaf's translucent surface. So of course, instead of waiting for the bug to appear, I just went around the orchid and photographed it as it ventured to the edge of the bloom, waving its miniature antenna.

So you want to know how big the bug was? Roughly as long as the lead point of a sharp pencil, and perhaps not quite as thick. I decided not to iron out this bug.

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