Today's garden critters

I don't often try to photograph insects. For flowers and garden shots, I tend to use a tripod, and so I'm rather tied to shooting with it - kind of like my security blanket.

But to get the butterflies, you need to shoot handheld. The trouble is that my longest zoom lens doesn't have image stabilization so camera shake is a problem. I suppose if I practiced more shooting handheld, I'd get better at it.

Yesterday, spurred on by Eve, who comments here faithfully, I gave it a shot and managed to capture these characters.

American painted lady

Monarch butterfly
Hummingbird moth - quite a challenge,
never in one place for more than a couple of seconds
In the evening, using my tripod again, I found this praying mantis,
(it's probably a katydid, see comments)
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener