Final swarm

The temperature rose almost into the 70s today, and on my walk, it was back to tee-shirt weather. It was also back to dragonfly swarming, since a recent splash of rain kept the midges and other small insects hydrated and ready to rise when the sun came out. In the doomed field across the road, I wasn't surprised to see a few small tornadoes swirling out of the meadow grasses, but what I hadn't expected, given that I was pretty sure the large Common Green Darners previously working the meadow had headed south, was that the little insect swarms would attract a collection of predator dragonflies. There weren't a lot of darners coursing over the field in search of prey, but the stragglers in this year's bunch were out, at least a dozen or two strong. The majority, I think, were Shadow Darners, the ones that stick around until the very end of the flight season and just gently succumb to the weather; they don't migrate south. But flashes of green and blue on the stout bodies of some of the odes showed that a few of the Common Greens were still in residence. My guess is they're hedging their bets and hoping for more food to fuel their eventual travels—and no early frosts to stop them from leaving.