More fairy flies!!

Got some more great pics of my fairy flies! It was funny, yesterday evening I caught one that wouldn't leave! He stayed on my hand for about 5 minutes, until I finally figured out that the little guy was cold, and needed to feel the evening sunlight on him before he could take off! Once I put my hand in the sunlight, he spread his little wings and floated away! :) These pics I got early this morning, as the sun was warming up the air.

Look at the puffs of fur on this guy!! They're so long!!

This guy has fur puffs going all the way up his back! It's so funny, because I don't look at bugs too often, I never noticed how unique each bug is, even within the same species. Just like every other animal type! :)

This shot shows off the beautiful rainbow iridescent wings that they have. So cute!

Update Sept 2007: I wrote to the "What is this pest" photo identification page, where specialist volunteers and others identify photos of bugs people send in. Their mega-contributor, retired entomologist Ed Saugstad, id'd this as a flying Wooly Aphid. An aphid! My sworn enemy, second only to slugs as a destructive force in my garden - "farmed" by ants, aphids suck the very life essense from my plants, and now here, it turns out my beloved fairy flies are one of them! Bleargh! Now I'm actually glad that there aren't many of them around every year.

I think I'll still call them fairy flies though...there's still something magical about them... :)