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  1. A recently-emerged cicada, resting on a honeysuckle stem.

  2. A handsome greenbottle fly (Lucilia), dressed in his best, shiniest, exoskeleton, out on the town, looking for a mate.

  3. A little tachinid fly (possibly Cryptomeigenia) sitting on a leaf. I love the shape and color of the eyes.

  4. The beavers have been busy in our creek! They've built four dams now, each of them a lovely bit of engineering.

    The frogs are enjoying this growing wetland. There are thousands of tadpoles wriggling about. Possibly they're hatching from eggs inside the jelly-like blobs we see in the mud beside the creek?

  5. An ambush bug on a purple aster. I hope I haven't posted this before, but its one of my favorite pictures. These asters are in bloom now.

  6. A fly I haven't seen before (possibly Hemyda aurata?) This poor guy was missing its left hind leg. The whole time I was there, the fly kept jabbing its abdomen at the leaf. A female depositing eggs? A confused male? I would have guessed that those naughty bits are some kind of clampy thing that belongs to a male.

  7. I came across this old photo of a handsome tachinid fly that I never identified. I love the stepped geometric black and white pattern on his abdomen. He's sitting on a wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia).

  8. A baby ambush bug sitting on a blackberry. I came close to popping the berry into my mouth, but noticed the speck of white just in time.

  9. A handsome "swift feather legged fly" (Trichopoda pennipes). See his elegant fringes?

    Dipterists definitely missed a good naming opportunity here. He should have been a "Fast Feather Footed Fly."

  10. A female Gymnoclytia on a daisy. The females are black and white. The males are brown and orange.

  11. @MikePalumbo
    Many years ago I read this great biography of Houdini by Kenneth Silverman. One thing that sticks with me is the book's description of Houdini's interaction with William Hope , a writer whose work I really like, but who seems to be a jerk who (for fun) manipulated Houdini into a humiliating situation on-stage during a performance.