It was July 3, 2020.

The male bees, Melissodes agilis, were getting quite territorial.

Every time a butterfly, a honey bee or another insect in our family's pollinator garden expressed an interest in foraging on the Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola, a male Melissodes buzzed them. 

"Get out of here!" he threatened. "I own these flowers. These are mine!"

What to do? I grabbed my Nikon D500 and 200 mm macro lens, adjusted the settings to 1/5000 of a second, f-stop 5.6, ISO of 800, and managed to get a shot of the menacing bee confronting a bewildered monarch.

Eye-to-eye. Antenna-to-antenna. Wing-to-wing.

What happened? The monarch quickly escaped the wrath. 

And the bee? It buzzed off, only to return to target another insect.

"Get out of here! I own these flowers. These are mine!"

Another tiff on the Tithonia. Another round on the rotundifola. 

Just another day in the pollinator garden.