Over more than two decades of working as a professional naturalist and nature photographer I have taken photos of all sorts of plants and wild animals. Each season has its featured creatures and not a day goes by when there isn’t something beautiful to aim my camera at. Autumn has its explosion of colors, winter has its landscapes, spring has birds and flowers and during the summer we find a profusion of insects to contemplate. Bees and wasps are very interesting and butterflies are simply beautiful, but nothing captures my imagination quite like dragonflies.
When you hear the word “animal” you typically think of furry, four-legged creatures like dogs, cats and squirrels. This is not wrong, but the animal kingdom contains so much more. Jellyfish, worms, snails, clams, squid, fish, frogs snakes and lobsters are also animals. The furry creatures that popped into your head just a moment ago are part of the class Mammalia, which contains 5,416 different living species, 70% of which are some sort of rodent. The charismatic megafauna (the lions, tigers and bears) only represent a tiny sliver of a relatively small group of animal life.
Of all the forms of animal life on Earth, the largest group would probably have to be the insects, and it is among the insects that you will find the dragonflies. This is a group of animals that live in the fields and forests across the face of the planet wherever freshwater streams, lakes and marshes occur. In fact, they are often used as bioindicators of water quality because their life cycle is so deeply dependent on water. dragonflies are members of the order Odonata, which contains 5,900 living species. Let that sink in for just a moment. There are a total of 5,416 living species of mammals on Earth and 5,900 species of just dragonflies.
Here in the Northeast we have 336 species of the Odonata order, which is further split into dragonflies and damselflies. Basically, if it has a large head with large compound eyes, a long and slender body and four very long transparent wings it is an Odonatate. The difference between dragonflies and damselflies is the position of the wings. At rest, dragonflies hold their wings perpendicular to their bodies, whereas the damselflies hold their wings parallel to theirs. There is so much more to it than that, but I’m already running out of room.
So I was out on one of our rain-free afternoons last week and I happened to catch sight of this gorgeous dragonfly that was gliding over an area of lawn. There was a delightful breeze swirling around and this dragonfly seemed to move effortlessly through the air. There was a slender flower stem sticking up out of the grass and this dragonfly seemed determined to personally claim it at “his.” This made my job of capturing photos much, much easier that it might have been otherwise.
To get “close” to this particular dragonfly I used my 600mm lens that has a minimum focus distance of about 10 feet. This way I could move around him and get different angles without disturbing him by invading his personal space. My first goal was to get the full-body shot, and then I started taking a little more risk by getting down on the ground and working on portrait shots. Dragonflies have huge eyes and excellent eyesight, so this guy knew I was there and just happened to be wonderfully tolerant of me. Not all dragonflies are so cooperative.
This particular dragonfly turned out to be a male Halloween pennant (Celithemiseponina). Among the dragonflies there is none other that has this particular marking pattern combined with the orange-amber wings. Males and females differ slightly in the specific colors on their faces and abdomens, but both sexes have the same orange wings. In this regard, the Halloween pennant is very “friendly” for observers.
In the summer months from June to September, the adults of this species will spend a lot of their time mating and laying eggs in freshwater ponds. The eggs hatch quickly and the young dragonflies (commonly called “nymphs”) spend their lives under water. They have gills, which allow them to “breathe” under water and they are voracious predators. The nymphs move around with their well-developed legs, but they can also move with sudden bursts of jet-powered speed by expelling bursts of water out of their hind end.
It is in this stage that the dragonflies survive the winter. All adults perish in the cold, but the nymphs are safe and sound under the ice and are ready to emerge the following summer to start the life cycle all over again. Females tend to have yellow markings, whereas the males have red markings. Most easily observed are the ruby-red spots on the leading edges of the male’s wings. Only the males sport these wondrous jewels.
We are in the depths of summer and the Halloween pennants are flying. Jump in a canoe and see if you can find these beautiful insects skimming across some lily pads. Go for a walk in a local field and see if you can find them zipping among the tall grasses. Go golfing and see if you spot one near one of the water hazards. Or, if you are like me, just walk through your own back yard and see what you can see. If there is a Halloween pennant in your yard, then you should be able to spot it fairly quickly.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 24 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.