The rain and cold broke briefly for a while yesterday, affording a fleeting opportunity to get out and pursue bugs for a while. A couple of the best shots came from my own back yard, where the Blue Bottle Flies were buzzing around on the leaves of the emerging garden perennials.

Later I managed to get out to the Allegan Forest, hoping to again track down an Olympia Marble – but this mission met with no success. I chased a few cabbage whites around until I confirm their identities, and then finally gave up hopes of finding the more butterfly and set my sites on pursuing the few damselflies that were hovering about the water’s edge. It was slim pickings, but a few shots came together. And the a brief session with a beetle on windswept grass, and a perhaps lucky shot of it walking on the wind tossed stalks.

I’ve had a hankering to do some fly portraits these last few days. Unfortunately, the cold and rain have kept even the flies at bay. Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies – are all magical and light. They are the emissaries from the spirit world, the messengers with word from beyond, the winged jewels that dance on the air. Diptera – flies – one the other hand, are all Beelzebub, filth, and mud. They are Caliban to the Odonata’s Ariel. Or so our culture tells us. But I like to photograph them all – and for a change in pace, the Windwalkers too.