It's a Blue-Eyed Boy!

This handsome Blue-eyed Darner was my reward for walking further than I'd intended at Lake Padden this morning -- well worth the extra effort!

At the time, I couldn't address him properly, knowing only that I was looking at a blue dragonfly, enjoying the sun on its wings. A bit of research once at home revealed that (1) "it" was a "he" (only the male Blue-eyed Darners have blue eyes), (2) he's a big guy (2.5-2.75 inches / 65-70 mm long), and (3) he's not rare (Blue-eyed Darners are common dragonflies of the western United States, and are seen in Mexico and Central America).

Females, whose coloring tends toward yellow and green, are not often seen, as once they've mated and laid their eggs, they spend the rest of their time away from water. There are some wonderful photos of males and females here.

In other good news, one of my Bellingham Farmers Market photos is in the July Alaska Airlines/Horizon inflight magazine! It's on page 15, and the article, "Land and Sea: Outdoor recreation in the Bellingham area" will be of interest to many blippers.

[Addendum: I had a Blipsnap with [url=http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/4548427]Mollyblobs[/url]!]

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