Opening the 2026 season - 11 #wildnature macros .:. EN/RU

Google helped to identify it. The name is 'Red Peacock Eye' (Aglia tau), its a nocturnal moth from the Aglia family. The distinctive spots on its wings shaped in the form of the Greek letter "tau" make it quite memorable. The description provided this interesting fact: adults do not feed themselves (they have a vestigial proboscis), but live off the reserves accumulated during the caterpillar stage.

Among the branches of a rose hip, I spotted two ladybug making love. (Make love! Not war!) They considered they'd found a secluded, shaded spot, hehe — but no, I found them anyway. In fact, nature has already come alive: I saw two butterflies, one dragonflies, several frogs, snails — but their numbers and, accordingly, their frequency of occurrence are still low.

Parts of the soil did not turn into green (yet). I was looking for fungi growing on spruce cones (a tempting subject for macro photography), but found a slightly bigger editions; I almost crushed the first one with my foot and only accidentally noticed the second one. They blend perfectly with the color of the fallen spruce needles.

By the way, notice the small white spot – that's a bite! The fungus already has been eaten... My guess it was a snail or a slug (I've already spotted all of them in the area). Apparently, after a test bite, it wasnt considered tasty (thats true: this specie is not poisonous, but not edible either).

The second one may look very different, but it's undoubtedly the same species. That's the thing that excites me most about fungi: how two editions of a same species can grow into completely different shapes.