There’s been dragonflies and butterflies all over the place lately, so here’s a special insect edition. I had this about ready to post early last week, but decided I needed to get a field guide so I could start identifying these critters. So, without further ado, and with the help of the National Wildlife Federation’s Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America (which looks like a pretty good field guide; lots of pictures), here we go! (As usual, click on the image for a full-res version.)

Here’s a Silver-spotted Skipper tankin’ up:

A Red-spotted Purple, who has apparently been through a lot but was still flying:

I think this is a Blue Dasher:

These 12-spotted skimmers were darting around all over a little cove. I thought getting pictures of kingfishers in flight was difficult…