Larry Snyder Sharing Images of 'Insects at the Ditch'

They crawl, they fly, they flutter, they buzz.

They look at us, and we look back.

But if you're Larry Snyder of Davis, an insect photographer and a retired musician, you not only look back, but you take their images.

Snyder does just that when he observes the insects at the city-owned North Davis Channel, the site of a former monarch-milkweed research project organized and directed by UC Davis professor Louie Yang. The site is also known as "the Covell drainage channel."

And now Snyder is sharing many of his images in a photography exhibit, "Insects at the Ditch," which opened Jan. 6 and continues through Feb. 2 at Logos Books, 513 2nd St., Davis.

The UC Davis research project began in December 2013 when Yang, a community ecologist, and his team planted narrow-leaved Asclepias fascicularis, at the site.  Then they monitored the interactions of the monarchs, Danaus plexippus, on the plants from 2015 through 2017, culminating in the July 2022 publication of "Different Factors Limit Early-and Late-Season Windows of Opportunity for Monarch Development," in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

"I began watching, and then photographing, the insect life on the plants," Snyder related, adding that he became especially interested in insect behavior and interaction.

"It's my adopted back yard."

Snyder captured the images with a Sony α7r iii digital camera and a manual-focus Voigtlander 110mm macro lens, handheld in natural light. 

"I am grateful to the Bohart Museum of Entomology and its remarkable staff and associates for the frequent assistance in identification and understanding of life in the insect world." He has also shared his images with the Bohart Museum. 

Snyder, a retired harpsichord maker, piano technician, and music instructor, is a 1968 alumnus of UC Davis, with a degree in English literature. He worked as an apprentice in Boston before returning to California. He founded and directed  the Mosswood Spring Opera "for the purpose of giving younger, less experienced singers the chance to perform roles opposite others who had sung in larger companies."

He directed the opera from 1976 to 2000. He also published a book, German Poetry in Song, in 1995.  In 2001 he chaired the organizing committee for The Davis Star Show astronomy festival.

Snyder's last photography show (of 5x7 black and white contact prints) was at the old Davis Art Center in 1985. He recalls using a "5x7 Deardorff, one of those things resembling an accordion on stilts, rather unsuited for living macro subjects, and which I sold 25 years ago."

As the late E. O. Wilson said: "It's the little things that run the world."

(Editor's Note:  The Bohart Museum, home of a global collection of eight million insects, is located in Room 1123 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis. The Bohart Museum's next open house, themed "Social Wasps,"  is from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 20. It is free and family friendly.  UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart, will share her wasp expertise.)