Yesterday I fought a lost battle against bloodthirsty horseflies and the sinking into sticky ooze and mud on an inland lake. All these while I tried to take shots of our eastern "invader", Sparganium gramineum Gorski. Eventually, I got my shots and even found time to make a little abstract study on the rippled reflections of a Sparganium inflorescence. The horseflies provided about 50+ bites and scratches and the mud swallowed my Crocs. All in all, a successful day in the field as I could cross off another species on my to-do list, and my D500 proved it had been wakened up from its zombie state of the last field trip.