Ebony Jewelwings, Secret Garden Preserve, Kennebunk Maine

At Emmon’s Preserve on the Bascom River the Ebony Jewelwings are always in the shade where the stream runs down over rocks under the tall pines and hemlocks. At the Secret Garden Preserve the trail crosses the same stream (nameless on every map I have checked) several times where the canopy is open and the Ebony Jewelwings are right out in the sun. It makes for a very different experience. For one thing you can catch both colors of the Jewelwing. All Ebony Jewelwings are the same color of course, but depending on the angle of the light, you get very different views. The first shot is the normal view, with the metallic green thorax and abdomen…and the second is the same, or an identical bug, with the angle of the light such that it reflects blued-steel blue. You might think that the blue bug is a different species, or at least a different color variation, but they inevitably move and when they settle again in differnt light they are just another metallic green specimen. 🙂

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. -.7 EV. 1/320th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr.