Hopefully this male Widow Skimmer doesn’t rest too long and gets back to eating my mosquitoes. The males often leaves the female after she lays her eggs instead of sticking around like many other dragonfly species do, thus leaving the female a widow.
Widow Skimmer
Yesterday I spotted a butterfly and then I saw a different butterfly today as well as the first dragonfly of the season at my pond. The Common Green Darner is a common dragonfly and are one of the first dragonflies to be seen in the spring. They are a skilled aerial predator and they eat many types of flying insects, such as flies, gnats, moths, butterflies, mayflies, damselflies, mosquitoes, and even other smaller dragonflies.
Common Green Darner
In six months, white spots on a twelve-spotted skimmer can be found around the pond, instead of the white snowflakes falling from the sky.
Dragonfly Resting
Those dang Asian lady beetles have returned in full force and some were biting me when I was picking apples today. I prefer other types of insects, like this poor dragonfly that would get swamped by water when a wave rolled in but somehow it managed to hang onto the rock.
Wet Dragonfly
The warm summer day at the pond had frogs floating on the water surface and dragonflies darting around. The twelve-spotted skimmer dragonfly has three brown spots on each wing and the males have white spots between the brown spots where the females don’t have the white spots.
Male Twelve-spotted Skimmer
Summertime activities around lakes and ponds include the darting and dashing around of many varieties of dragonflies. The black spots on the wings gives this dragonfly its name of Twelve-spotted Skimmer.
Twelve-spotted Skimmer
The nice summer day had people enjoying outdoor activities, and even the critters seemed to enjoy the day. Around the water, dragonflies were darting around. The Calico Pennant Dragonfly has colorful markings. They begin their adult life with yellow coloring and as males matures, the color changes to red but the females keeps the yellow colors.
Calico Pennant Dragonfly
My backyard looked like a scene from the movie birds, except my sky was filled dragonflies instead of birds. So I wasn’t sure why the yard was more appealing than the pond where they normally hang around. None of them were sitting like this blue dasher, but instead the dragonflies just darting around the sky.
A Blue Dasher
After a rain shower last night, it was another nice day with more signs of spring returning as well as revealing the harsh winter. I saw a rabbit this evening but earlier in the day, I spotted one of my young maple tree debarked by the bunnies looking. More spring wildflowers are opening like the bloodroots although the deer already ate some of the snow glories blossoms overnight. More birds are returning like the northern flicker. The pond is coming alive with the tadpoles swimming in the shallow waters as the female wood duck makes trips into the duck house. The water striders are skimming across the top of the water while dragonflies skip around in the air above. But it will be a while before spotting this red color dragonfly as it is an autumn one and I want spring and summer to last a while first.
Meadowhawk Dragonfly
There wasn’t much activity around the pond when I mowed around it this afternoon as there was no dragonflies darting around. The dragonfly flight muscles need to be kept at a suitable temperature for the dragonfly to be able to fly. They can raise their temperature by basking in the sun, which was out today, but it was still chilly out so they either have migrated or they have outlived their short lifespan. If I had looked under the water, I might have spotted some larvae, which their larval stage can last two years or more, so more dragonflies will return next summer again.
Absent Dragonfly
