This dragonfly has an orange-ish tail. I don’t think it’s as colorful as Orange Dragonfly I photographed two years ago that Mike Powell suggested could be a Needham’s Skimmer.
There are other orange dragonflies, including the Golden-winged Skimmer. And let’s not forget that that variations in sex and age confound identification. So, a colorful dragonfly above the swamp.
A number of dragonflies were working the edges of the the swamp along the boardwalk. This Great Blue Skimmer chose a perch that gave me a good view.
The greenery made a nice background and the dragonfly stayed put while I went by him for a different angle.
I liked the way this dragonfly spanned the space between the dried trumpet vine pod and the branch, filling in the angled line. And he looked like he was holding up the right hand branch.
A slightly different angle of view, with the dragonfly closing that space completely, and cropped to 1X1.
I’m not sure why dragonflies bother with these hard shelled insects, not sure just what they are.
They are pretty small and I think the dragonfly was having a hard time getting it down, chewing and chewing.
Our back yard has hosted a variety of dragonflies this summer. They take advantage of a few fallen branches I’ve left in the corner.
This Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly landed on a tangle of twigs, just at my eye level.
His legs entwined with the perch made me think of a craft project gone wrong.
Usually dragonflies are pretty still when they perch.
This fellow was adjusting his wings as the wind was moving his perch.
It was a dull day with not enough light to really capture the insects’s orangey color.
But with his wings up you can see their golden look.
Some dappled sunlight was filtering down onto the wooded path I was exploring and amazingly this dragonfly landed in the light.
He paused a minute on a blade of grass giving me a very good view.
When he moved he stopped right at my feet, landing on my shoe, before selecting a vegetation perch.
This dike between two rice fields is less built up than most that I’ve walked, putting me down closer to the water than normal. Also unusual is that the edge of the path is a coarse grass about up to my knees rather than tall reeds.
The SC Department of Natural Resources staff had recently mowed the dike, making for an easy walk.
I went there April 28 hoping to see wading birds but instead found a tremendous variety of dragonflies.
Dried out vegetation was a popular perching choice.
A few opted for living grass, and this blade was wide enough to create a nice shadow.
There were gaps in the vegetation along the path allowing me to line up this shot with the duck weed covered water as the background.
Some of the dragonflies preferred perches over the path.
Surprisingly with all this dragonfly activity I was unaware of mosquitoes or other flying insects around for them to eat.
I have seen dragonflies much earlier this year than the last few. Last year’s post Dragonfly, First of the Season was May 9th. In the comments of that post fellow blogger and dragonfly enthusiast Mike Powell (https://michaelqpowell.com/) thought that insect “looks to be a female Eastern Pondhawk ” and I am thinking this one might be also.
Several of them were flitting ahead of me on a wooded path and I was pleased to get the image of this one hanging onto a blade of grass.
Boynton Trail, Donnelley Wildlife Management Area, SC
March 26, 2020
And there it was, hovering right in front of me over the pond. My shutter speed was only 1/800 but I took it any way as this was the first dragonfly I’ve seen this year. He stayed around a bit but my subsequent efforts at a higher speed weren’t as good as this one.
Nearby a second dragonfly, perhaps an Eastern Pondhawk, kept returning to this log, looking like he’s not quite ready for action.
With spring just beginning there will be ample opportunity for some better images of these curious creatures.
Just to round out the scene, here’s the log with the dragonfly about 2/3 of the way back.
March 18, 2020
