Today I took a bike ride to a nearby National Wildlife Refuge here in Massachusetts. Along the edge of the wetland there, there is a lot of purple vervain and goldenrod which attracts a lot of interesting insects. I brought a macro lens for very up-close shots of these. However, I didn't forgot to bring any telephoto lens rendering any dragonfly pictures nearly hopeless. And there were a lot of dragonflies.
Here's what I was able to capture:
Next up is the Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp (Eremnophila aureonotata) which is a common wasp in my area. If you start looking at goldenrod, you'll find them eventually. The silvery patches (4 or 5 on each side?) on its thorax are a distinguishing feature for this species. It should be called the Silver-marked wasp really... It is large but docile.
There were a few paper wasps around. They appeared to be this dark species called the Dark Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus). These seemed smaller than other times I've seen them. Maybe different broods are different sizes depending on time of year or food availability? Or just natural variation in size...
Thanks for checking out my post! All photos are my own. Maybe next time I'll get some dragonfly photos!