Darren the Dragonfly

Let me introduce you to my buddy Darren, a twelve spotted skimmer dragonfly.
Look at him, doesn't he look like a superhero.

Darren and I spent a glorious 20 minutes working together on an amazing photo shoot.

It happened on a beautiful sunny afternoon in July of 2011. I took 136 images of Darren, talking with him and watching him turn his head, lift his front legs up and down and pose for me like a model would.  He sat and let me do anything I pretty well wanted. I had my camera half an inch from him at times and he still didn't fly away. I couldn't believe it, at first I was in a hurry to get the shot, because that's normally the case with insects, if your lucky you might get a couple shots in and they fly away. Not Darren, I thought after abit that maybe he wasn't even alive, hurt or stuck. Why was he still hanging around letting me get so close to him. Very strange, he seemed to be as curious about me as I was of him. He even stayed around after the shoot for a bit before flying away. Here's just a few of the images I got and a few facts about his incredible species.

 

 

 

A little about the skimmer dragonfly.

Body parts include the abdomen (it's the long blue part)

 two pairs of translucent wings,

thorax,

his head with the large multifaceted eyes,

and three pairs of legs.

 

He measures in at 50mm - 2 inches in length.

Each wing has three brown spots.

In adult males, additional white spots

form between the brown ones and at the bases of the hind wings.

 

 

They live in Southern Canada and in 48 of the US States.

They eat mosquitoes, flies, bees, ants, wasps, and sometimes, but rarely butterflies.

They can be found around marshes, lakes, ponds,

streams and wetlands because their larvae known as nymphs, are aquatic.

There are 5680 species of dragonflies worldwide.

Dragonflies are predators but they're subject to prey from birds, lizards,

frogs, spiders, fish, water bugs and other large dragonflies.

 

I took these and almost all of my photos in my backyard.

We've created our own eco system here, an incredible pond and waterfalls.

Beautiful flower gardens, a little beach, a boardwalk and gazebo.

It's most definately a labour of love, and the rewards as you can see are bountiful.

 

This isn't the only amazing encounter I've have with dragonflies here in the land I like to

refer to as Sueville, located on the shores of sunny lake Petri.

So, stay tuned to my blog for more of my photo adventures.

 

There are already lots of tales in past blog posts, just dig through the archives and

you'll see what I've been up to so far. Thanks for stopping by and reading this, I hope you enjoyed it and please come back again as things are ever evolving here in the land of Sueville.

I have online shops and a website where you can purchase my fine art photos, and other creations.

www.SuePetriPhotos.com
www.SuePsales.com

www.suepetriphotos.etsy.com
www.suepsales.etsy.com

All photographs by Sue Petri. All rights reserved. Do Not Copy