Love is in the air at Agumbe

Monsoons have set in and with them have brought in a wonderful feeling of love and romance at Agumbe. This is what I felt when I recently visited the place as a part of the Rainforest Rendezvous with Darter Photography

The whole camp site was lush green with lovely streams crisscrossing the place. The rains were coming down in powerful short spells and there was a pleasant cool breeze billowing across. It was definitely a stage, setup, to usher in the the flavor of romance and so it was. There were wonderful and cute courtships happening all around the place and it seemed as though the insect world was abound with love and romance.

Courting pairs of beautiful damselflies and dragonflies flying around, tiger beetles hopping around in pairs and crane flies being caught in the act. There were lot of pursuing too, with the males of black colored beetles incessantly pursuing their females with the hope of acceptance, though there were broken hearts in some cases. It was amazing to watch and observe these wonderful moments of nature.

Most of the insects have a very short adult life, mostly in the range of a few weeks. Hence, their primordial instinct would be to look for a mate to ensure proliferation. Some were successful in finding their partner, while for some, it was a struggle with disappointments……

Damsel Flies Mating

Courting Pair of Blue-tailed Damsel Flies….

Courting Dragon Flies Mating Dragon Flies

Courting Tiger Beetles Mating pair of Tiger Beetles

Mating Crane Flies

Mating pair of Beetles

Then, there was this male black beetle that was in pursuit of its mate…., albeit, with very little success…….. He would try to entice the female by brushing his antennae against the her body, but the female wouldn’t budge ….. This chase went on for a few minutes before the male finally gave up and they moved away in different directions.

Black-Beetles-Mates-Pursuit