I'm not sure the dragonflies are quite on the move yet—well, the ones that will be traveling southeast soon enough—but there have been plenty of large, Darner-type odonates gathering in afternoon feeding swarms. Most of these are Common Green Darners, and when I watched a lone ode get too close to a passing car and wind up on its back in the middle of the road, I fully expected it to be a run-of-the-mill Anax junius that was not going to be making any migratory trip. But when I picked up the still-shuddering insect, it was immediately obvious that what I confronted was anything but ordinary... for me, at least. I'd never seen anything like it, and while it turned out to be a hardly rare ode called a Mottled Darner, I'd never seen one before. I brought it home in one of those zip-closed plastic bags I always carry and, since it was still barely alive, I was able to photograph it from every conceivable angle. I didn't think it would survive, but after a little R&R, it shivered, got back its strength, coordination, and bearings, and then took off, buzzed me—perhaps that was a thank-you—and disappeared.