3.26.2011

A Damsel and a Dragon

I've been keeping my eyes open for odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) lately. So far I've only seen a couple of species. There were common baskettails flying in the yard a few days ago. They declined to be photographed.

This fragile forktail was only slightly more cooperative. At least I was able to get enough of a shot to ID the little critter.  You may be able to see the little exclamation mark on its shoulder (click to embiggen).  That's diagnostic for this species.
 
I was able to get several shots of one particular dragonfly that happened by at work yesterday.  It was much more cooperative than the other odes...

 

 

 
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This particular dragonfly is a solar electric hybrid on its way back to PA where it will complete a 6500 mile journey that began last June. The captain told me he was getting about 65% of his power from the sun. Not too shabby.

7 comments:

KaHolly said...

They were around here most of the winter, until we experienced an uncommon arctic blast, and I haven't seen any since. I don't know if the weather is the reason or not, since I'm not familiar with S. TX. But the butterflies...oh, my!

Wren nests in... said...

Wow,that's really neat. And here she is!
http://www.slowboatcruise.com/p/about-our-boat.html

swamp4me said...

Ellen,
I thought the boat was pretty interesting. Nice and quiet, too!

swamp4me said...

Wren,
Thanks for the link!

Wren nests in... said...

As it's still too cold up here for odonates, I fixed on the my-favorite-color-blue boat with the great name! *lol*

Sybil said...

That boat is quite wonderful. So nice it's not polluting the environment it's exploring.... well at least not much. ;-)

Sybil
Eastern Passage, NS

Salvadoran Art History said...

Great readd thankyou