Great Lakes region, USA. June 2026.

I haven't seen too many of these skippers yet.

Great Lakes region, USA. June 2026.

The most adorable little grasshopper on a tickseed.

This ladybug obligingly held still while I took a stack of focus bracketed images at, apparently, ƒ/3.2 and 1/100 sec according to the EXIF data. (Don’t look at me, I was in Fv mode.) This is hand held, and it’s always equal parts pleasing and mildly suspicious how well Helicon manages to line all the images up afterwards.

Bonus homework:

Great Lakes region, USA. June 2026.

The dragonflies and damselflies are in full force. I saw no less than a hundred nymph exoskeletons clinging to plants. I like to think this one was was returning to its exuvia.

Great Lakes region, USA. June 2026.

Tried to catch the baby to move it out of my garden, but it crawled into the flower and showed me its little booty instead lol

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

I'm not sure of the particular species.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

One of the coolest looking bees IMO. That emerald green is so pretty.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

A rather cool looking beetle. Those antenna are glorious.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

I don't usually find flies to be cute, but that proboscis and those eyes make me think of a dog panting.

After some difficulty I finally got some decent shots! I even had a Karen come and demand to know what I was doing. These are uncropped and shot handheld. I'm surprised their wings froze so well. This first one is 1/800s and the second 1/1250s.

I saw a decent amount of these green darners today. I tried to catch some getting jiggy with it, but that flopped. They're an elite insect IMO. Throughout their lives they're both master swimmers and master flyers.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

I believe this is in the Toxomerus genus (Calligrapher flies). I could be completely wrong so feel free to correct me. I can't tell what species specifically it is, but it looks cool perched on this leaf.

Taken with my OM1 + 60mm macro.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

Still more butterflies.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

Another of the beautiful butterflies I found yesterday.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

Another beautiful butterfly I saw yesterday.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2026.

My new (to me) super telephoto lens came in the mail and I wanted to test its macro capabilities. It was the perfect day too. In just a few hours I had stumbled upon a ton of butterflies. I'm impressed by how well this lens does for small subjects.

Great Lakes region, USA. May 2025.

I was too lazy to switch to my macro lens, but my 75-300mm cheapo can do nicely sometimes. I wasn't able to get the azure color of the upper wings, but I did get a nice proboscis shot.