Eastern Yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons)
Close-up of an Eastern Yellowjacket gripping a white aster flower with its legs. #insects #macrophotography
everal years ago, I planted various species of aster in two large plastic planters placed on my balcony. Over the years, they have self-sowed and expanded, and now the planters pretty much grow mostly asters, though some other things are in there too, including red columbine.
The asters flowers usually come out in late September. It’s early-October and they are just opening up now: hundreds and hundreds of tiny flowers popping all over their little slender stems with small green leaves.
The aster flowers attract all sorts of pollinators. Tiny bee-like things, which might actually be bees. Yellowjackets, which I identified using iNaturalist. Some other wasp like insects.
Eastern Yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons) · Saturday 3 October 2026FujiFilm X-T5 · ISO 200 · 1/250 sec
XF27mmF2.8 R WR · 27 mm · f/16
I assembled my “macro kit”, which consists of my Fujinon MCEX-16, ring flash, XF27mmF2.8 R WR and X-T5. The pictures are usually blurry. My main struggle is keeping myself still enough to push the shutter and trigger the ring flash. Maybe it’s the coffee or maybe it’s just age. My hand-body combo isn’t the most stable compared to a tripod.
Today I noticed what looked like a fly with a bright bluish-green, metallic colour to it. I wasn’t able to get a photo; it flew away too quickly. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be warmer and one or more of those little flies will come back.
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