Few from today..

First ones are of a common buckeye. Last is of some type of sweat bee, complete with full baskets. Thanks for looking!!!

nice series. like the third one best.

Bill

Thanks Bill. I think it was so interesting on how different the dorsal and ventral views are on the same butterfly. I admit I'm partial to the first one because of the almost monochromatic feel to it, but the third one was close behind.

#3 is a winner. All are nice.

Nice series Elisabeth!

Thanks rrdjserv and Sugarman!

Very, very nice series. Really like all of them. In the past I haven't been too fussed on butterflies, but they're growing on me and yours are certainly helping their cause

The last one is an Agapostemon Sweat Bee. Good shots.

Lovely set, especially like #2

Wonderful captures
Brian V.

nice set. i love that last shot...i still havent managed a decent shot of one.

Thanks Troy, Kurt, and Brian for your comments. Keith, thanks for the ID. Looked at bugguide, and couldn't really decide. And johnkermit1, they were so unbelievably shy and active, that I bet I got maybe 2 keepers out of about 20 shots. All that I saw had very full pollen baskets. I only wish my backgrounds weren't so cluttered. I know that for about half of my shots, my f-stop was higher than I normally shoot at, because I was shooting our barn for my aunt, who likes to paint. I changed it, but can't remember what it was set at for most of these. I think the sweat bee was f/5.6, while the butterflies were at f/2.8, which is as low as my camera goes. I love that nice, soft bokeh, but as you can see in my first shot, that butterfly was in the middle of a lot of old grass stems, leading to the clutter. Oh, well! In any case, I'm posting the barn on the nature forum, if you want to check it out.

Beautiful shots. Colors are stunning.