For the past several days, I've been going outside with my trusty phone and macro lens, monitoring flowers for insects and other critters. Awhile ago, I stopped by our goldenrod. First, I spotted a crab spider that had just snagged a dance fly. Then on another bloom, I spotted this party of four—two banded scythris (Scythris trivinctella) moths, a small fly (probably Chlorops sp.) and a black ant (Monomorium genus). It was fun to watch one of the moths and the fly interact on the petals. The ant mostly stayed out of the way.
At one moment, I saw the fly touch "noses" with the moth. Ugh—that moth didn't like that!—and it pulled away. Such blatant rudeness offended the fly, and it also turned away. As for the ant (and me), we found the mini drama to be highly entertaining.
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