Flickr Lounge: colourful

I didn't know this beautiful dragonfly existed locally until this lovely one posed cooperatively for me, allowing me to take close-ups from several angles on two different perches, virtually unknown for dragonflies, especially during the warmth of the day.

More facial and eye detail viewed large.

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Flickr Lounge: Something Wild

It was a fairly good day for photographing insects--in fact, that has been true the last three days. There aren't a lot of individuals out and about, but it's just cool enough that many of them allow a close approach. This wasp was moving around a different plant and I took several photos of her (none I really like). After a while she turned toward the camera with the wasp equivalent of a glare and flew off. I left also and took a few photos down the path a ways, but returned a few minutes later and was happy to find her immediately, and more tolerant of the camera. I think this is a katydid killer, but I'm rusty on my wasps and need to look these up. Actually, I think it's the great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus), which does indeed kill katydids.

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I never get tired of trying to get the perfect focus on this tiny little fly. 1929

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Nymph of wheelbug or assassin bug, tossing its shed exoskeleton. (I think it's a wheelbug, but the orange color leaves me uncertain. Color after a molt often varies from the insect's final color.) I couldn't decide whether I liked this shot (in which the skin is being shaken to loosen it from the silken thread that holds it to the leaf) or the one that more clearly shows the shed skin, and decided I'd start by posting the one in which its exoskeleton looks, well, skull-like. But I loved this whole little scene, from the colors and shapes to the action, and took quite a few shots of it from different angles.

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