Dude! Get off my flower!

Another banner insect day for moi. The strange looking creature on the upper right is a Plume Moth (Himmelman's, I believe) and the green dude is a sweat bee (Augochlora pura). I have only seen a plume moth once or twice before, and never had the right equipment to photograph them. They are very tiny, maybe 1/2 inch across, and are more commonly seen at night. However, they do occasionally come out in daylight to nectar on flowers, which is what this one was doing. As I was focusing in, the sweat bee flew into the frame - click, click, click - gotcha! I was actually thrilled that I got a couple of shots where both the moth and the bee were in focus - totally accidental, and I'll take it!

I didn't get out until around 3, so the heat was sufficient to bring out all the dragons (yay) and quite a few butterflies. I took the macro lens, fully intending on getting some close up dragons. While I was out on one of my favorite trails, I ran into a young woman who was taking macros with her iPhone - she showed me some of her pictures and I was quite impressed with what she'd done. I told her to save up for a dslr as I think she's got real talent. I pointed out some tiny little frogs and was even able to get one in my hand so that she could photograph it. A future nature photographer.

The frogs, by the way, were smaller than my pinky fingernail - at first when I saw them in the grass, I thought they were ants. I posted some pics of them, along with an assortment of dragons and a few birds, starting HERE on Flickr - 10 pics in total.

Thanks for sending Blue to the Spotlight yesterday - of course, now he's demanding more peanuts being that he is a star and all... Sheesh.

Seven more sleeps until Hubs gets here. I'm very happy about that.

Tomorrow I plan to head out for an early morning hike - hoping to get my first Halloween Pennant dragon...

Debbi