I don't want to sound too one-note, but I'm finding that, all too often, I'm invoking the "spring-that-wasn't" as an explanation for all sorts of lacks: the missing butterflies, wildflowers, and, of course, the odonates. While, pretty close to right on schedule, I did spot the extra-early Blue Corporals on Lantern Hill at the beginning of May, since then, the dragonfly and damselfly sightings have been few and far between. Still, I continue to haunt the usual places and am always hoping that nothing is really wrong with the natural world... things are just late. Case in odonate point: this morning, while I was acting as tick bait in the meadow across the rural road, a flash of sunlight on good-sized wings led me through the tall grasses to a perching ode whose amazing abdominal markings were the field marks of an Arrowhead Spiketail dragonfly. The exquisite insect gets its name—this one's a female—from the spike-like ovipositor at the end of the abdomen. This contrivance is used to jab into the mud to insert eggs, and its existence makes the odonate identifier's life easy. The Spiketail, of course, is late in its appearance. You can guess the likely cause of her tardiness.