By this time in past years, the June air has been thrumming with dragonflies of all sorts and every walk would have yielded at least an odonate sighting and photo or two. Or three. This year, of course, with the persistent chill, has been different, and these magical insects have been exceeding slow to make the transition from aquatic larvae to airborne adults. But they have to have been ready, and all it took was the slightest bit of warmer, sunnier weather to get the transformations going. Today was clearly the day, and along the edge of a field, I spotted a number of newly emerged—the technical term for these "teenage" odes is teneral—dragonflies, including Spangled Skimmers and what I'm pretty sure was a Dot-tailed Whiteface. My favorite, however, is this gorgeous Delta-spotted Spiketail. These are pretty, quite large, and, from my perspective, rather rare. "You never forget your first girl," goes the classic advertising line for Saint Pauli's beer, and while I can't vouch for its veracity, I can tell you that I've never forgotten my first spiketail... nor any of the subsequent ones, which have been few, far between, and always a cause for joy. (This one is a girl, which you can tell by the small ovipositor at the very end of the abdomen.)