Painted meadow
While Painted Skimmer dragonflies are supposed to be on the wing in late May, I rarely see them around here until the end of June, and so I tend to think of Libellula semifasciata as a marker of the beginning of summer. By that calendar, this Painted, and several others I spotted in the Bell Cedar field, as well as in the cemetery, today are a bit late putting in an appearance. No surprise: this year, time is truly out of joint, and I think we'll just have to take things as they come. Tardy or not—some of our Painteds apparently migrate here from the south, so maybe they just didn't feel like traveling until recently—these exquisite odes are settling into the Bell Cedar field and using the plant stems as observation posts and launching pads from which to hunt smaller insects.