There's been something of a dearth of odonates this month and last, and their relative absence has both mystified and unnerved me. But maybe they were just late emerging from the water, because over the last few days, as the heat wave settled in, I was back in the company of dragonflies. On my walk in the late afternoon, I trekked to a new-ish refuge given to the North Stonington Citizens Land Alliance by my good friends the Cotes in honor of their late son Samuel, and, perhaps at my suggestion, the managers opted to avoid haying a stretch of meadow in which resides an unusual open-field vernal pool. I've surveyed this wetland for years, and now, with the grass tall and waving—I think the pool area is now dry—I was greeted by Widow Skimmer dragonflies. These are truly gorgeous insects, and this one, with the white haze on the wings, is a male... an unusually cooperative male.