Record late Meadowhawk

When the temperature this afternoon soared into the 60s—a new high, I'm pretty sure—I knew that I had a mission: to visit the Babcock Ridge and Henne preserves and see if there were any dragonflies still on the wing. At the end of November at Babcock, I spotted an Autumn Meadowhawk, which is considered the very last of the odonates to remain active, trying to buzz its reflection on the skin of the Prius, but, despite the ridiculous warmth today, the dragonflies were nowhere to be seen. I wasn't surprised. We'd had a true killing frost or two, post-Thanksgiving, and I was pretty sure that the cold had put an end to the odonate season... at least the adult dragonflies. (The eggs and larvae in the water were just fine.) Pretty sure, but wrong. When I trekked to the boardwalk over the wetland, I quickly discovered that Autumn Meadowhawks are made of exceedingly stern stuff. There were actually two of them soaking up the warmth on the Henne boardwalk and being, individually, very cooperative subjects. I marveled at the insect's hardiness and put the sighting, along with the day's thermometer reading, into the record books.