I realized that I have a pretty expensive camera, but I haven’t been using it for a long time except for photographing my mother’s gingerbread creations. So this morning I took a break from heavy lifting, and I took the camera to take some pretty-ish pictures of the pollinators that like to visit my oregano patch. I did not manage to make very many because I did not have the battery fully charged prior to this spur-of-the-moment action, but I did get some. And I did not bother with the macro lens.

Butterflies do not have a long life, but some manage to have it pretty rough and survive even so, as this specimen proves. Faded colors, chewed-up wing edges, yet still it flies.

Peacock butterflies are probably the prettiest butterflies that live around here. They look drab, almost coal-black with their wings folded, but stunningly beautiful when they flash their eyes from time to time to scare off or confuse predators.

There were multiple bee species present, but they were turning their hairy butts towards me and generally being uncooperative and blurry.

And of course several bee-mimicking hoverfly species were also present, being just as uncooperative as bees.

Bees and butterflies get all the press when it comes to pollination, but some beetle species are important in this regard too. And they are often very tiny.

There were also smaller butterfly species there, and I did not manage to capture all those present by far.