This was a definite surprise. It was a warm, sunny morning—the fact that it wasn't raining was a surprise in and of itself—and I was walking up the kitchen door stairs at a little past 10 when I spotted an old, familiar face hanging off the porch light. It was definitely a Fawn Darner dragonfly, and while they're pretty common around here, I don't normally see the first of these Darner-type odes until August, and then, they mostly don't pay us a visit until dusk. They're certainly handsome creatures, and they're easy to identify, what with that telltale pair of yellow-edged-with-black spots on each side of the thorax. There are also smaller spots that adorn each segment of the abdomen. I don't know what the early appearance signifies or, frankly, if it's actually early. Maybe the Fawns simply don't visit us until August but, in many other venues, they're out and about in July.