Another assortment of flies from the summer’s macro catalogue. Flies don’t rise to the top of most people’s list when it comes to favorite creatures, although I imagine that many of us conjure images of houseflies, deer flies, and bottle flies when we imagine them at all. Such a narrow sample entirely overlooks the vast breadth of species within the designation of “flies,” many of which want as little interaction with us as we do with them, to say nothing of those that serve as valued pollinators or staples of the food chain.
I submit for your curiosity, then, these three flies: the longlegged fly, the margined calligrapher fly, and the tufted clusterfly. These individuals all visited my garden over the course of the summer, and more importantly – from my perspective – they were willing to remain still while I loomed over them with a camera to capture these images.
I cannot offer much in the way to detail about these flies or their lives, except to say that the longlegged fly could at first be mistaken for a mosquito in size and shape, while the other two maintain more of the expected fly appearance. Most of the time when shooting macro photos, I have very little idea what particular creature I’m working with until I see it through the lens – or more often, on the computer monitor later, reproduced significantly larger than life size.
Part of the fun is discovering new critters, and given the vast diversity of fly species, it isn’t a stretch to say that new finds await discovery on any nearby leaf.