Back in September of this year, I had a magical morning in the prairie across town, along Lincoln Creek. I posted some photos from that morning in a post on September 20, but those represented just a small fraction of that morning’s crop of images. Here are a few more – various photographs of two dragonflies that were trapped in the morning dew as the sun rose. Insects stuck in dew are great because I can take as much time as I need to explore compositions without worrying about them flying away (most of the time).
The first dragonfly I spotted that morning was this gorgeous red one – its color matched the stiff sunflower it was perched on!. Here is the typical ‘bejeweled dragonfly’ shot of that individual. It’s a nice square view of the insect, with the camera perpendicular to the wings to make sure everything is in focus. Very nice. (Ho hum)Since the dragonfly wasn’t going anywhere, I took the time to try some different angles. Here’s my favorite of those.Here is a meadowhawk that was perched about 10 yards away from the first dragonfly. This side view close-up is one of the most frequent compositions I use with dragonflies. It’s just fine, but I’ve done it SOOO many times before…Here is the same dragonfly from the front. I like this a little better because it’s a more personal shot. If it looks familiar, that be because it’s only slightly different in composition from an image of the same dragonfly I included in the ‘Dragonfly Game’ post earlier this week.For this photo, I swung around so the light from the rising sun was passing through the dragonfly’s wings. I don’t mind the glare spots in the background – I think it just adds interest to the image.I think this is my favorite dragonfly shot from the day. I took quite a few photos from this angle to make sure I got one I liked. I ended up with way too many that I liked, each with the sun in a very slightly different position. That made for a lot of difficult decisions about which to keep, but as of today, this is my favorite.
Longtime readers of The Prairie Ecologist may remember The Plant Game, a creatively-named feature of this blog that has been dormant for a while. If you don’t remember it, you can go back and find examples here, here or here. I’m sure it will shock you to learn that The Plant Game was a great way for me to come up with a blog post when I didn’t really have anything to write about that week.
In unrelated news, I’m introducing a new game this week called The Dragonfly Game. It is completely different from The Plant Game in that it is about dragonflies, not plants.
This variegated meadowhawk is a common migratory dragonfly species that passes through the Platte River Prairies each spring and fall.
Here’s how The Dragonfly Game works. I give you a list of four names. Three are official names (common names, not Latin names) of either dragonflies or damselflies. One is a name I made up. You just have to figure out which is the fake name. Click on your choice. That’s the whole game. I’ll wait a day or so and then put the correct answers in the comments section at the bottom of this post.
Damselflies can be distinguished from dragonflies most easily because they are much skinnier and tend to hold their wings folded back along their “tail” when at rest – as compared to dragonflies, which tend to keep their wings outstretched.
Dragonfly names are crazy, aren’t they? Do you think you got all of them right? Check back to see – the correct answers will be below in the comments section starting about 24 hours after this post comes out.
The Prairie Ecologist 