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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Damselfly As Bait

I like damselflies. They are often mistaken for dragonflies, but there is a difference. Damselflies fold their wings up, like the one in my pictures, while dragonflies do not.  Their heads are also very different. Take a close look some time.

The damselfly I have for you today just happens to have a relation to my previous post about the frogs. This little critter was flying around and stopping and staring at me while I was taking the pictures of those frogs. Because of that, I had to take the time to get some pictures of the damselfly too.

The first frog actually tried to eat this little green damselfly while I was taking my last few pictures. That event was actually the reason I stopped taking pictures. That frog was gone, and the event pulled my mind away from the frogs, and onto thoughts of my next adventure.

Since a few of you have given positive feedback to my little blog tips, I decided to bring you another. I have a Blogger tip today that you won't find anywhere else. I discovered it myself. Many people don't like that Blogger navigation bar that sits at the top of all Blogger blogs. Personally, I think it's just fine up there, but I wish we could style it a little more.

Out of dislike for that navigation bar, there have been many template hacking tips to show people how to hide it. Well, I have a tip to hide it, or even to style it a little bit without going into your blog template. I'm going to show you how to manipulate that navigation bar with just a simple piece of CSS code. First, here's the code:
#navbar-iframe {
  opacity: 0.4;
  height: 30px;
}

Try plopping that bit of CSS code down in the "Add CSS" section of your Blogger Template Designer. You'll immediately see results. If you lower the opacity number to 0, the navigation bar will become invisible. That part doesn't work in Internet Explorer though. If you lower the height to 0, the navigation bar will shrink down to nothing. That should work in all modern web browsers. Now your Blogger navigation bar is gone!

You may notice that I've put a background in my nav bar above. I'll share that technique if anyone wants it. It doesn't work great, but you can see the background. Unfortunately, there's not much more styling that can be done with the nav bar. The styling I've done is basically only on the frame that it sits in, but it works well. You won't find this information anywhere else, so let me know how you like my little tip.

Now that my tip is done, it's back to nature for us. This last picture shows a rare look at a damselfly with its wings spread. The picture isn't great, but it does the job. I kept trying to get this one, but my camera wasn't cooperating well in the shade of the forest.

Before I go I'd like to tell you that I've done a massive redesign of Nature Center Magazine. I have always believed that a blog or a website should look good, and I want mine to be impressive. The site was okay before, but I am really very proud of how it looks now. So go take a look if you haven't seen it.


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

17 comments:

  1. I'm not very smart about these bugs! I didn't know the difference between damselflies and dragonflies!

    I'm glad the frog didn't eat the subject of your great photos!

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  2. metallic green damselfly, that's an awesome catch.

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  3. Your first few comments are jarbling with info at the bottom of your post. Nice capture of the damsel in distress.LOL

    The red-spotted purple butterfly is a mimic of a Pipevine Swallowtail so predators will leave it alone.

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  4. nice damselfly pics! I had some pictures of mating damselflies taken a while back, you can see them here:

    http://ihsankhairir.blogspot.com/2010/02/insects-mating-after-feb-14th.html

    and yes, I am guilty of calling them 'dragonflies' in the post... I have much to learn about odonata!

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  5. Oh Ratty, the damselfly photos are beautiful.

    I took some pictures last year, and found them at the edge of my son's soccer field, but I couldn't find where I store the pictures!

    By co-incident, I almost publish a post on Nav Bar too..I like your CSS coding..

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  6. I love those damsels..so gorgeous!

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  7. Hi Ratty,
    I didnt know the difference so thank you for that info.I called them all helicopter :P

    Thank you for the tips. I dont mind the bar at all but I appreciate the tips very much,kind of you to share.

    Look forward to your next posting Ratty

    Regards
    Umi

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  8. I like the way you replace blogger icon with your ratty head.

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  9. I've never seen one of these before. Very interesting.

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  10. you made it sound so simple, i struggle with css and html but sure this one is a good tip. love the damselfly photo.

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  11. I must confess... the whole time you were going on about the damselfly, I was wondering what it tasted like!

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  12. Beautiful damselfly Ratty. Her body looks like metallic green!
    Glad to see you still blogging :)

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  13. Thanks for all of your comments. I'm trying to catch up with everyone right now.

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  14. Sure wish some Damselflies would visit me. I really like the photo with the wings spread.
    I'm not sure how I feel about that bar...but it is good to know this trick in case I decide it needs to go.
    Going to check out NCM!

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  15. Good catch on the damselfly with wings out. "Time's fun when your having flies," said the frog.

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