Dragonfly Season

It’s dragonfly season again.. These gorgeous creatures flit around the dock and the shoreline of the lake. I’m disappointed that there are fewer this year but there is an obvious reason for that. There’s a scarcity of lake weed floating at our end of the lake. Dragon and damsel flies lay their eggs upon floating weeds.

I spy a small section, only about 12 square inches of weed floating near the cattails growing between our dock and the one next door. I suppose that explains why most of the dragonfly activity is centered there, with the insects often posing on the jewel-weed by our dock and the broad leaves of the cattails. When I take a canoe down the lake I am relieved to find larger patches of floating weed, a couple about a square yard in area. The weed is dotted with little bubbles. Good. The dragonflies have been laying their eggs. I would hate for them to leave our lake for lack of a breeding ground.

 

Dragonfly nymphs- the early stage that lives in the water—do us a great favor by eating mosquito larvae. They also eat other aquatic insects and worms. When they become beautiful airborne adults they continue to eat mosquitoes and also dine on ants, termites, gnats and other small flying insects.

But this time of year, I don’t see them eating. Rather they are chasing each other at great speed, rapidly changing direction like UFOs or the helicopters that must be styled after them. Occasionally they land on us. A pair of electric-blue damselflies land on my husband’s nose as he floats on a plastic noodle in the lake. I rush out of the water to retrieve the camera but, predictably they take off just as I line up the shot. Guess that’s the one that got away.

I remember reading, from when I was a Girl Scout leader, that dragonflies are one of the first insects to leave a place when it becomes polluted. Another reason I want to keep these indicators nearby. But even if they neither ate the nasty bugs nor told the quality of the water, I love to see them around. My favorites are the large ones whose dark brown wings sport a large patch of baby blue. When they fly, their wings look fluffy. I also love the electric-blue damselflies. But even the tiny amber dragons are fun to look at. They fearlessly land on my hand. The sun, filtered through their wings, shows as long orange ovals on my skin.  MY camera is totally misbehaving. I put in new batteries but it insists on telling me they are exhausted. So I have to use images from the Internet to show the gorgeous creatures flying about.