Swarming Common Green Darners

Yesterday, I wrote about the giant cloud of tiny insects that rose en masse out of the no-longer-hayed field across the street. Today, I want to tell you about what zeroed in on all this bounty: an equally prodigious swarm of large and nimble dragonflies. Most of them were Common Green Darners, a species I've had the good luck to "capture," when they were at rest, with my camera. I posted a closeup recently, and I was about to do so again, since, early in the morning on the day after the cloud appeared, I found several of these photogenic odes still too chilled to fly. Instead, I offer a shot that isn't really up to snuff—the video I made is better, but I can't post it on my photo site—but that gives you an idea of just how many dragonflies were at work on this remarkably warm afternoon. There were odes literally everywhere, and they were busy non-stop, trying to fatten up on prey in anticipation of heading to the coast and starting their trip south and a little west. Being in the center of all that activity was amazing, but I wish the dragonflies had been more cooperative about letting me document their feeding frenzy.