At night, there are vehicles in and out of the community, pedestrians walking, and the sound of insects at their feet seems to be overshadowed; early in the morning, when they come downstairs, the autumn insects sing happily, as if they are greeting people who have risen early, "twittering" non-stop, and when the footsteps are heavy, they pause, lean down to follow the prestige, but they can't see it, as if the whole lawn is their habitat.
After the cold dew, nature will go to silence, and from mid-October to early November, after listening to the songbirds singing, it means that the weather has changed from cool to cold. At this time, people who play with bugs are getting busy.
Autumn bug shooters carry their cameras around the countryside
"The main insects in autumn are: locusts, crickets, green worms, small cabbage moths, dragonflies, bean maidens, cotton bollworms, praying mantises, caddisflies, ladybugs, butterflies and so on. In Jiangxi, many insects can be active until November or even December, in addition, there are some parasitic and migratory insects. "When it comes to shooting autumn insects, the old photographer Yao Weimin is like a family treasure.
A digital SLR camera, a professional macro lens, plus flash and other accessories, became Yao Weimin's main equipment for shooting insects. "Every rest day, as long as it doesn't rain, I will meet a few insect photography enthusiasts and go into the countryside fields and mountain trails to shoot together." Lao Yao told reporters that they sometimes lie on the ground for several minutes, and villagers who pass by often mistakenly think that they are holding high-level instruments to detect some treasure. In order to find insects and shoot insects, they almost walked all over the corners and corners around Nanchang.
"Playing macro for almost 4 years, think about shooting bugs is really quite hard, autumn morning and evening temperature difference is large, often have to spend the night in the mountains, but if I am lucky enough to take a beautiful picture of autumn bugs, I will be happy for half a month." 」 Lao Liu, who is fascinated by the shortest time of shooting insects, told reporters that natural light is the first choice for insect macro photography. The best time to shoot is morning or evening, as the light is soft, the tones are beautiful and there are no heavy shadows, and there are good details in the highlight areas and shadows. Macro photography on rainy days is also a good choice, under the huge diffuse clouds, you will get soft light, without too much contrast and strong shadows, which is one of the reasons why Lao Liu is so tossing and turning in the mountains for the night.
On October 9, Yao Weimin took a group of photographers and set off to Meiling to shoot autumn insects. He said that after the long holiday, the mountains were quiet again, which was a good time to shoot autumn insects. "Macro insect photography requires more skill and participation, and the process is much more interesting. For example, you can see how dragonflies like bombers prey on food; how romantic butterflies in the grass mate; how busy bees in the flowers collect pollen. Lao Yao did not forget to remind some new photography enthusiasts who have joined the team of autumn worms to take a wonderful photo, patience is equally important as luck, and sometimes it is common to spend an afternoon and get nothing.
Play bugs are mostly middle-aged and elderly, but there is no shortage of young men in their twenties
Zhang Qiang is over forty years old, and he has played with worms for most of his life. "What could kids play in the 1970s? No computer, no APP, all day long in addition to picking up bird eggs, catching mice, is to catch insects. At that time in Nanchang, when autumn arrived, there were insects chirping everywhere. Zhang Qiang said that perhaps because of the closeness to nature in his bones, he chose Jiangxi Agricultural University when he took the college entrance examination that year.
"Before entering the university, my childhood hobbies could only be some superficial cognition, and the maturity of the university's profession and mind was the key to opening the door to the insect world." Zhang Qiang told reporters that during the university, the teacher began to lead them to the wild to collect insects, the species and the huge number of insect groups he came into contact with during the university made his eyes wide open, and this period also became the period when he harvested the most, and since then, Zhang Qiang has embarked on the post of studying autumn insects.
"There is also a group of people playing with autumn worms in Nanchang, and in this group, most of them are middle-aged and elderly, but there are also many young men in their 20s." Zhang Qiang said.
Playing bugs are mostly crickets Although bugs are cheap equipment, they are bottomless
"There are many kinds of autumn insects, and there are 13 autumn insects that play with insects at the old bottom, and now there are fewer, mainly crickets and yellowflies." At a bug shop, the owner said. He introduced that autumn insects, as the name suggests, are autumn insects, and there are also crickets. The crickets in the Nanchang market are more wild, and many people will catch them in the grass in the countryside this season. The "two guns" and good sellers will be brought to the market, and the insect shop will selectively accept it and resell it to customers. Smaller autumn insects such as yellowflies and golden clams are mainly farmed in captivity, and they are also transported from other places.
It is revealed that cricket products are 5 yuan to 6 yuan per cricket product that is a little different; the whole needle is fully bearded (2 tentacles and 2 tail needles are left intact), and if it sells well, it will be sold for 10 yuan or 12 yuan.
"Bugs aren't worth a few bucks, and the equipment is bottomless." This has almost become the consensus of Autumn Worm players. The owner of a bug shop said that among all the autumn worms, crickets have the largest size and the richest content of play, so the history of "playing" is also the longest, and the equipment is also the most. The equipment for playing with crickets, also known as insect tools, includes cricket pots, water bowls, rice plates, cockroaches and grass plants. There are many kinds of pots, such as gourd pots specially used for breeding, and bucket pots for buckets. Grass is also divided into different varieties, such as yellow wolf grass, whisker grass, chen grass and so on. There are specially placed grass mustard buckets, special tools for adding water to crickets, special brushes for cleaning, to match a full set, there are really a lot of things. "As for the price, this is not easy to say, up and down is very large." The shop owner said that in the case of cricket pots, cheap twenty or thirty yuan, expensive one or two million yuan, there is a market.
Studying autumn insects is fascinated by insect diversity and infinity
"A few days ago, I temporarily lived a praying mantis in my house, and I put it on a flowerpot and took my daughter-in-law to observe it closely. I put my finger in front of the mantis's pair of catching feet (sickle feet) in front of her, which would not hurt me in the slightest, and would tentatively climb up my hand. Seeing this, my daughter-in-law was very surprised and asked me, won't it bite you? I said, of course not. Ai Huimin, a teacher who studies insects and teaches biology in high schools, told reporters that many people have great fear and disgust for insects and reptiles, which is because people do not understand them.
Mr. Ai Huimin often takes out his photos taken in the wild to tell students stories, and he has collected a variety of beetle specimens, many of which he brought back from abroad by his friends, many of which he collected when he went to the field.
"In fact, playing with insects, like many lovers of playing birds and fish, as long as they are willing to spend time in their spare time, they will naturally know more than others." Ai Huimin told reporters that as long as he has the opportunity to go to the wild, he will take various opportunities to collect insects. And he also regards his home as a paradise to collect and display his hobbies. On balconies and writing desks, specimens of insects made with needle insertion and pasting can be found everywhere.
"After several years of insect sample research, the number of insect populations in Nanchang is gradually recovering, and local insect species are adapting to urbanization, but this thesis needs to be further confirmed in insect collection in the next few years." Ai Huimin said, "Now there are more and more people who love to play with insects, and the reason why so many people are fascinated by insects is because of the diversity and infinity of insects. ”
How to collect insects to make specimens
Ai Huimin provides some introductory references for the majority of friends who love insects:
The commonly used collection tools for going out to collect insects are mainly insect nets, suction tubes, poison bottles, insect trap lamps, and other necessary tools that need to be carried include finger tubes, forceps, scissors, collection knives, record books, steel tape measures, collection boxes, etc. Net capture is one of the most commonly used collection methods.
When catching insects that are good at flying in the air, they should move quickly and briskly, head-on, and immediately turn the net mouth over, and throw the worms under the net to the net circle together, so that the insects entering the net are not easy to run away.
Every year from late spring to late autumn, it is the appropriate season for insect activities and the best time to collect insects. Among them, the warm and sunny weather harvest is larger, while the cold and windy weather, most of the insects are dormant and not easy to collect.
The collected insects are best made into dried specimens, which can be inserted with needles or pasted.
Meiling is a good place to photograph autumn insects
According to incomplete statistics, Nanchang Meiling has more than 200 kinds of butterflies, many of which are very rare. According to reports, due to the special geographical location of our province, the distribution of butterflies is more concentrated in the Mountains of Jiulian Mountain, Wuyi Mountain, Jinggang Mountain and so on, while the place where butterflies in Nanchang area are concentrated is Meiling.
In addition, this is also the best time to photograph fireflies. According to the "Jiangxi Insect List" published in 1994, there are 8 kinds of fireflies in our province, and the area of Nanchang City is mainly yellow fireflies, such as Chinese yellow fireflies, Japanese yellow fireflies, broad striped yellow fireflies, dark yellow fireflies, red striped black fireflies, saw horn fireflies, etc.
Text/Jiangnan Metropolis Daily reporter Ye Wei Photo/Jiangnan Metropolis Daily reporter Chen Minghua