I've become, this year in particular, a big fan of a group of Diptera that belong to the fly family Syrphidae, a.k.a., the "hover" or "flower" flies. The hovering designation refers to their flight habit and the flower name points the observer towards the favorite habitat of these colorful but often tiny little gems. Many of the syrphids I've been tracking this summer are somewhere between thumb-nail and little-fingernail-sized, and this one runs towards the most diminutive part of the scale. I did not, alas, capture the critter from the proper angle—I should have carefully worked my way 90 degrees clockwise to position the 85mm Micro to get an image of the top of its abdomen, where the best field marks can be found—so I'm not yet in a position to provide an identification. If I had to guess, however, I'd place this large-eyed bee mimic in the syrphid genus Toxomerus, which is where a number of similar species, all of which feature black and yellow abdominal markings, reside. For now, I'll have to be content without being able to give it a proper name. Sometimes, just a picture is enough.