The bright white and black stimata and deep blueberry colored body make the male Spangled Skimmer quite a flashy dragonfly. Here in Massachusetts, I have found them to be somewhat scarce in the Berkshires and adjacent foothills, but it becomes more and more common to the east and south. I took this photo in Montague, MA.
The bluets can be such a great challange to photograph. Once, while driving in the Washington area, I came across a sign that proclaimed "Prepare for Sudden Aggravation - Road Work Ahead" If you decide to try your hand at bluet photography, you would do well to prepare yourself for sudden aggravation! I don't know how many times one has stuck around about one second less than the time I needed to get a photograph. If you try enough times, however, every now and then one will stick around just long enough. I photographed this cooperative Tule Bluet in my stomping ground of Chester.
The Zebra Clubtail dragonfly without a doubt is a stunning creature, and unfortunately most people have never seen it, or even heard of it for that matter. If only more people took the time to enjoy and appreciate nature, I think this would be a far better world. In my travels in pursuit of dragonflies, I have only found a couple places to find the Zebra Clutbail reliably. I have seen perhaps 25 or 30 males over the past three or four years, but only one female. She swooped down from the treetops to a male perched on a rock, and in an instant they paired up in a mating wheel, and flew back up and out of sight. I didn't have a prayer of getting a picture!
I was watching several male and female Beaverpond Clubtails along a country road in Woolwich, Maine, but this one female really captivated me. When I first spotted her she was just a bit higher on a tree limb than I would have preferred. Nevertheless, I was trying hard to get the right angle on her, and a usable photograph. At the same time a deerflywas buzzing at my hair, which I was trying my best to ignore lest I scare away the dragonfly by making too quick of a move. She suddenly swooped down and pulled the deerfly out of my hair, and flew back to the tree munching away. I have to admit I took some delight in this development, but she was then even higher in the tree. Just when I was going to give up on her, she cruised down to the roadside vegetation and struck this great pose for me!
I have usually found Uhler's Sundragons at the edge of woodlands, and in sunny clearings. I photgraphed this female on a woodland path adjacent to a pond in an upland area of Berkshire County. I was captivated by her eyes, and I feared that the photograph wouldn't do them justice. I was wrong about that. This species was first described by Baron Michel Edmond de Sélys Longschamps in 1871. He was a belgian politician - a senator for about 30 years. His passion was nature, birds and dragonflies in particular, and he was a distinguished amateur naturalist. If only there were more politicians like him today!
The site I work at is a former cold war era strategic arms storage area. The brush covered artificial hills formed by the repurposed munitions bunkers, and especially the ones in the vicinity of water bodies are magnets for dragonflies. They afford cover as well as excellent vantage points for hunting - if you're a dragonfly, that is. Providing habitat for dragonflies - a much nobler purpose than their original.
The colorful calico pennant, like other pennant species often perch on the tips of plants that are just stiff enough to support them - if it doesn't, they try another. On breezy days they often can be seen with the forewings held up in a vee, and the rear wings in their normal outstretched fashion. All of the Celithemis pennant species are found in the eastern US, and they are all attractive looking. I photographed this Calico Pennant in Holyoke, at the Wright Reservoir.
I have found stream bluets along medium sized rivers and streams, reservoirs and lakes. It took me a good two or three years to get a photograph of a lone female, I was seeing plenty of female Stream Bluets, but every time I did see them, they were mating. With the bluets, the femals often seem to be skulkers, hiding low in the vegetation. With this species, the coloring on the female lets her blend in nicely with her surroundings. I was quite happy to spot this lone female, and she proved to be cooperative enough to allow a photo.
Images copyright 2003 – 2014 , by Glenn Corbiere, and are not to be used without permission.