Eastern Amberwing

I took off right after breakfast this morning for a walk along one of my favorite trails.  I decided to carry the camera with the 300mm lens because I thought I'd mainly be photographing birds.  As it turned out, the day was all about the dragons.  Seemed like everywhere I looked, there were dragons and damsels - I counted 9 species along my walk.

This is a female Eastern Amberwing, a common and widespread member of the Skimmer (Libellulidae) family in eastern N. America.  One of our smallest dragonflies, the amberwing measures only about an inch in length  The males have gorgeous solid amber wings, while the females (as seen here) have patterns resembling that of a Halloween Pennant.  They are the only species of dragonfly in our area that is a wasp-mimic, and this is thought to protect them from predation by birds.

I believe this one is freshly emerged from her naiad state based on the almost wet appearance of her wings, and the fact that she was perched in a patch of sun, in heavy vegetation.  Like most dragonflies, she would likely have spent a year as an aquatic eating machine, until it was time to crawl out of the water, shed her aquatic form and emerge as a dragonfly.  Interestingly I did not see any males of this species, nor did I see any females aside from this one.  

Two of my other fave shots of the day are on Flickr and can be viewed starting HERE - a freshly emerged Halloween Pennant (my second choice for a Blip today) and female Spangled Skimmer.  

I did have a bit of a scare while about a mile out on the trail when I heard a snort, which sounded very much like the noise that a bear makes.  Heart pounding, I slowly turned all around, all the while wondering how to make myself look big, and finally spotted the source of the noise ... two riders on horseback.  One of the horses snorted...and took abut a year off my life!  

Now, I'm off to enjoy some time in the garden.

xo
Debbi