The quest for "small flying things"......

It's that time of year when you don't know whether to have the camera set for "close-ups" or for distance. One minute you are trying to capture a bird and the next it is one of the "small flying things" that catch our attention. Over the last few days I have had a lot of encounters with dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, skippers, moths, bugs. I'm lumping them all together in one post.At Hartman arboretum, I spotted my first Clearwing Hummingbird Moth of the year. I always get excited when I see them....so unusual.
It seemed to like these purple flowers.

Silver-Spotted Skipper from the open position.

The side view with the "white elephant" spot, as we call it.

Blue Dasher male

I have no idea on the name of these two, but they were busy at the edge of the pond.

I really don't know damselfly names and didn't even look it up.

Comma or Question Mark

Green metallic bug (Six Spotted Tiger Beetle)......I saw them in two different places.

Common Whitetail male

Eastern Pondhawk male

Red Admiral

Red-Spotted Purple Admiral

Same butterfly open.....it wouldn't let me get behind it for a better shot.

Don't know this one

Not sure

American Snout.

I remember when I first saw these last year and how strange I thought it looked. I have better photos from last year and will put one on the sidebar.

On a more serious note. These purple traps are hanging in various places around our area. What are they? They are trying to find out if we have the dreaded Emerald Ash Borers in the area yet. This trap was in the conservation area where we go in Henderson, but we have them around Evansville, too.

The first time I've seen a sign with one....explaining and asking people to leave it alone.

We saw one on the grass in a park yesterday.

Someone couldn't resist knocking it down.

Since I have a beautiful ash tree in my yard, I hope they don't find evidence of the borers.....but it doesn't look promising when you look at maps of where they are.