Dot-tailed teneral

After several years on the hunt, odonates have become something of an obsession... a magnificent and productive one, to be sure, but a genuine obsession nonetheless. As a result of finding great mentors and spending what is probably an inordinate amount of time photographing the often-exquisite insects and studying the results, I've actually developed a fair amount of expertise. I can now identify most of the common dragonflies, and while I'm still pretty inadequate when it comes to damselfly identification, I'm making inroads there, too. In fact, this year I've gotten confident enough of my skills that I'm starting to make tentative steps in the direction of doing genuine science by putting my finds into a database that I can work with over the upcoming years of discovery... hopefully, lots of years of discovery. All of which is preface to saying that this beautiful ode, discovered at the back of the Bell Cedar field, is, I'm pretty sure, a teneral male Dot-tailed Whiteface. I knew this almost as soon as I looked at the photo. This is a happy sign of progress.