Being back working at the office at Innovation Place has the benefit that I get lots of chances to take photos in the gardens and around the pond.
I always look for fishing spiders but I haven't spotted as many this year. I'm not sure if that's because there are less around, or if I'm just not spotting them. It doesn't help that the water hyacinth that I usually spot them on has been drifting around the pond a lot.
I thought this fly was being rather foolish, but looking at the images closer the fishing spider already had a mouthful of something, I think a dragonfly. Perhaps the fly was hoping for crumbs?
The 12-200mm lens does a decent job at macro photography, but the 60mm macro lens produces much better results.
It's taken me many years to start to identify even a few native plants. This Blazing Star was at Innovation Place, but they've been flowering wild lately as well. I see them in similar locations as the spring Prairie Crocuses, probably because those areas are the least disturbed.
They're not native (from the Amazon) and can be a bad invasive species, but I always enjoy the water hyacinths flowers. They're probably not a risk here with our cold winters.
It never ceases to amaze me how many kinds of insects are around. In comparison, there are only a small number of mammals or birds here, we know them all, and they're mostly easy to identify. But I constantly come across insects or spiders that I've never seen before and quite likely will never see again. This was my first Elm Spanworm Moth:
My first Lupine Bug:
I always look for flower crab spiders, but I didn't realize there were also Ground Crab Spiders. I spotted this one when I was taking photos of the Grass Spiders on their funnel webs.
These are carpenter ants (New York maybe?), presumably farming aphids.
The bright red of this Lily Leaf Beetle was easy to spot. There are lots of lilies around, but it wasn't on one.
I'm not sure why this predaceous diving beetle was crawling around out of the water, but it was a good chance to photograph it.
There were quite a few of these Meadowhawk dragonflies busy mating.
I've seen several of these Yellow-legged Mud-dauber wasps. They presumably visit the pond to get mud to build their nests. They are solitary so the nests would be small, less than the size of a fist.
These Giant Mayflies (aka fish flies) are much more common. I've seen several around town lately but never had my camera. Finally I came across one on the bridge when I had my camera. The adults tend to emerge in batches and only live for a few days.
And who can pass up a butterfly with a name like Great Spangled Fritillary:
This Killdeer was sitting on the railway tracks chirping away. For a change it didn't seem to mind having it's picture taken. This was one of our smoky days from the forest fires and thus the hazy background.
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