Well, yes, there are flies on us...or on our elbowbush. I was able to photograph four different kinds of fly (I hope they're all flies--some of the wasp/fly mimic things always confuse me) on the elbowbush. This one is large--about 2 cm long. The thorax is striped in dark blue and black; most of the abdomen is brilliant iridescent green, but notice that hairy black tip on it.	Smaller than the green one was this metallic gold/bronze one, shiny all over its abdomen.
This tiny fly, less than 1 cm long, had a metallic bronze thorax, bronzy eyes, a white face, and a zebra-patterned abdomen.. It perched on the bare wood between the elbowbush flowers, not on the flowers themselves.	And this tiny fly, a little smaller than the black-and-white one, had a black and yellow striped thorax and a flattened abdomen patterned in orange and black.
Two male cardinals perched near one another in the southwest meadow brushpile. A body-language conversation ensued, and one of them suddenly flew away.
This black-crested titmouse didn't trust the camera's big eye, but wanted to fly over to the feeder for sunflower seeds. Its wariness gave me time to get some good pictures, though I had to clone out an intrusive twig.	Here's a more formal portrait.
Fluffed up a little on a cold morning, a male lesser goldfinch shows up as a brilliant yellow dot from any distance...here he's perched on a prickly ash twig.
He took off just as I pressed the shutter again, giving me a lovely flight picture.

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