Have you ever had a photo shoot with a dragonfly? The day I took this was summery and extremely humid. I miss those days as these days, we got ice on plants everywhere. Most of all - not a sight of them dragonflies.
Dragonflies stick their abdomens upward when it's too hot to cool themselves off. This is a Common Darter Dragonfly. A younger male as he is red- brown. They turn darker red when matured.
When resting and they need to warm themselves up, they spread their wings. That's the best time to take snap shots and if you don't have a monkey mind and are very very calm you could get lucky they'll strike a pose and even smile for you like this one. For some reasons, they always seem to be smiling. Just like Asians, always happy no matter how big the problems are.
I took this some years ago with my Samsung Galaxy Note 1 and have shared it privately in my fbuk.
Those wings are my favorite not because they make them fly but there's a memory attached to it. One day, when I was just six, I came home with a dragonfly my friends and I caught in the field on the way back home from school. It's easy to catch them back then cause they were a bunch and they'd be perched just along the way on fences or any stick and we'd clip their four wings between our index and thumb and we got one. That day, one of my friends took their wings off.
When I got home, mine still had its wings and while I was showing off my grandpa that I caught one huge "carabao dragonfly" I also told him that I found out that if I take their wings off they won't be able to fly. I took one wing off to show him and my gramps stood up from his chair by the window ( he was always sitting on that chair when I get home waiting for us .. maybe watching us through that huge window then) grabbed my other hand about to take another wing off the poor creature and shouted at me; " That poor creature is doing its best to survive and you've just crippled him!". I was aghast cause gramps never shouted on me except when he got pissed off which I wrote about in this post that I let go of the dragonfly and it was able to still fly. That day gramps gave me soft littany to leave nature alone and to this day, I have never dewinged any creature except the Alates or the flying ants. I just don't want them in my house.
Those beautiful wings are very essential to the dragonflies. The bigger the wings, the faster they could flap away. The biggest dragonflies could fly as fast as 30 miles per hour. Guess what, those wings operate independently so even if it loses one wing, it would still be able to fly. Now, don't you dare try take one off! Though I don't believe in reincarnation or ghost my gramps would go after you! The best fact about their wings is that they actually allow them to fly upside down - probably happens when mating on top of the water.
I love having them in the garden because they eat plenty of aphids which we got a lot cause we got ants in the garden that milk them aphids. The dragonflies along with the lady bugs help me combat those leaves eating pesky aphids. The best part about having dragonflies is that - these guys eat non- stop as long as they are awake. Talk about gluttony with that thin body. Reminds me of my friends always saying;"How could you eat that much and stay this slim?" If you live near swamps or any area with water, worry not about mosquitoes as long as you have dragonflies they'll munch on lots of them. The only sad part about 'em is sometimes, if they are bigger than huge they could actually take out a butterfly which are my favorite insects. Yes, like @jamtaylor and other photographers, I love critters and creepy crawlers that's why I often drop by @mweich and @ocrdu who post such cute tiny six legged crawlers.
I took this one with my Samsung Galaxy Note 1. This one's a she as the males are more of red and this one's yellow - brown.
To attract dragonflies plant some lavenders in your garden. They love resting on stalks and the longer the stalks are the better. These lavender blooms have already withered but I let them stay and just cut the short ones every year, to lure dragonflies for photo shoots. Those puny tubers of the lavender blooms have teeny tiny creepy crawlers the size of a dot that creeps pretty fast, you could probably just see using a microscope - that's why they love sitting on them. Free food, perfect camouflage and plenty of sunlight to warm their wings.
I took this one with a Samsung Galaxy Note 1.
Now, this pic looks like he is smiling down on me and that smile is freaking contagious it brought me to smile at him back then and now, as well. In some Oriental countries, they consider the dragonfly as a spirit animal and believe that one who has it as their spirit animal needs to go through metamorphosis, have a great adaptability in life, capable of adapting to any changes to become their full potential. That's because the dragonfly was laid as an egg in the water, swam there as a nymph(so before you throw any trash in a pond think of the baby dragonflies!!!), crawled on to a leaf and became a pupa, flew into the air and finally land on some ground or any plants on the ground for the rest of his beautiful life. They also believe that those who have the dragonfly as their spirit animals are capable of showing their true colors and manage to shine just like those creatures with colorful wings that flashes when hit by the sunshine.
The dragonfly above ....though it looks like it has two eyes with one pupil in the middle they call "facets", actually have 30,000 individual facets. Each facet, or ommatidia, makes its own image, and it has 8 pairs of neurons that allow those images to become one vivid picture. It's not just that, they also have four or five opsins. Opsins are the proteins in our eyes that allow us to see red, green and blue (one color per opsin) and we humans, have three opsins only compared to the dragonflies. Because of this, they could see the UV light, the same vision we have when we put on polarized sunglasses and any other normal colors. Those cute helmet looking eyes also give it a 360 degree eye view. So they don't really have to look down to see me while I was taking his picture cause - they could see me when they're flying towards me and they could also see me when they are flying away. Talk about mind blowing! Who needs third eyes when you have those dragonfly eyes. Okay those two are different :D. Unlike cars, they don't have blind spots making it easy for them to escape predators.
Dr. S.D. Wiederman conducted a study on them and found out that though these guys have that much facets, they could not really multitask looking at things. They tend to focus on one subject,then the other and then another subject. That must explain why this one looks like it's checking me out from above. They have a selective attention span - that's what they found out when they attached a nano - electrode inside the visual processing neuron of a dragonfly (yes, I also dropped my jaw and said ; "wotttt?" when I read about it- how on earth do you attach an electrode to its visual neuron? with a needle? how?).
There are marshes near my place and one of my neighbors have a mini pond in their backyard which probably explains why we have plenty of them dragonflies and frogs. Ever had a photo shoot with a dragonfly? If yes, what's it like? If no, why don't you hang a thread or stick some twigs or sticks on the ground of a pot or better yet, have a lavender in your garden to attract them in summer. They'd use any stick like thing - even your finger to perch on. If you feel like catching them, wait till they stretch their wings like planes on landing fields and carefully give their abdomen a light pinch and you've got them closer for you to check out. Hold all four wings in the middle of your index and middle finger but not to tight! Better yet, lick your finger and stick them out and surely - you'll get them sitting on it if you don't have a monkey mind.
sources:
Common darter
14 Fun Facts About Dragonflies
Dragonfly Damselfly Power Animal Symbol Of Change Piercing Illusions Light Understanding Dreams
Here are my other posts about insects I took pictures of in my garden.
I usually blog about cooking, gardening and photography and if you happen to be interested in all of those, too .
I took the rest of the pictures with my Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 edition.
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Love them! And yes, I have photographed many of them, my first ever posting here showed two damselflies.
@ocrdu - ja toch? maar niks meer
ik heb veel robots achter mijn staart denk ik
vervelend hahaha
't Is al weer een maand geleden dat ik de laatste gezien heb. Er zijn wel twee soorten winterjuffers in Nederland die als volwassen dier overwinteren, maar die zijn lastig te vinden.
@ocrdu echt waar?
mischien wel bij meiners wijk - ik had nog vorige zaterdag een roeie gezien heel groot - bij het meer en kleine blauwe damselflies maar kun geen fotos maken want ik had mijn telefoontjes niet megenomen ggggrrrrr :D
Hier staat een foto van een winterjuffer met ijs op z'n rug.
@ocrdu daz anders - wat ik zag was groot
heel groot bijna zoals deze op mijn post en de blauwe waren dun
zoals die winterjuffer
bij de meinerswijk zijn veel insecten nog
maar die soort die bijt
hahaha gellukig geen teek of wel
veel koeien daar hahaha
What a great post! Your appreciate of dragonflies really shines through. I let my grass grow tall, like a meadow. Big dragonflies like to cruise over it in the evening. It's fun watching them dart this way and that, catching a lot of food.
I really like the picture where the dragonfly is hovering and looking at you.
@haphazard-hstead thank you!
He was on one of those stems of a grape vine. I had to stand up on a stool to reach him. They're not the same guys. The one on the red string(where the passion plant crawls) - was pretty high, I had to use a stool and tip toe hahaha :D but they're so cute right? Always looking like they're bubbly and smiling. It's hard to leave them alone. They love grasses - I don't have any in my garden but they're everywhere.
They are great! Can you tag this as gardening, too? You make such a good point about having dragonflies in a garden and talk about how to attract them, too.
@haphazard- hstead I did tag it as gardening didn't I :D I just didn't use the trails this time cause I wasn't sure - whether it would pass gardening trail tag guideline would it?
The gardening tag is fine. I look all over for gardening posts, because it's about building a community - not a challenge to have the best posts. As long as the posts meet some basic criteria, I'll curate them. So people can get good gardening posts by going to the @gardening-trail, without having to wade through improper posts, posts that aren't genuine, or just lazy posts.
@haphazard-hstead thanks for clearing that up and don't worry like I told you in the chat - I'm not the type who thinks my post is the best. My only worry is that maybe I'm not using the right tag or abusing a tag so sometimes I actually don't know which tag to use as I've mentioned to some of my blogs.
Thank you for posting @englishtchrivy. Lovely photographs....so nice how you were able to get the close ups and bring these to Steemit. Yes...smiles all around.)
@bleujay thank you! cute right? always smiling :D
I love them and I miss them a lot - that, too the only insect I have now are aphids hahahah in the strawberry greenhouse :D
Great post and photos, dragonflies are wondrous aren't they?!
@mweich thank you!
They are - amazing creatures! :D
Upvoted by @gardening-trail
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@gardening-trail thank you!
Okay now am sure I could use gardening-trails for insects, too as long as they were taken in my garden I suppose ?
Anything that has gardening content is good. You can check the guidelines in the links where we said your post was upvoted. Happy gardening -- indoors in the winter, at least!
@gardening-trail okay, thank you will read when I find time :D
Wow, wonderful shots from a phone camera. I'll resteem this.
I thought dolphins are the only ones that smiles all the time.:-)
@ace108 thank you - the dragonflies, too
the damselflies sometimes look grumpy :D
Thank you for the resteem that's very kind of you and @oaldamster :D
you're welcome.
Hi @englishtchrivy
Great photos and great article.
@rynow thank you
very informative and naturalistic post.
@freecrypto thank you :)
Dear @englishtchrivy. How very kind of you to Resteem bleujays Principle of the Day. Thank you.
bleujay is currently without a way to post as esteem is undergoing an update for IOS...plan b was to use postimage.org...however Steemits submit a post is not accepting....must be doing something wrong....any advise? Sorry for the trouble. and again thank you.
@bleujay, I like the quote a lot so I did :)
As for posting, am just posting on my laptop with a normal browser. Try, too. I just posted an article - to check whether it's working or not. I have managed to submit a story so maybe - if you do it on your laptop or maybe you need to update the esteem app?
Let's ask @goodkarma, please assist - esteem - not working atm? Thank you.
Thank you for your reply @englishtchrivy. Oh yes...good-karma replied straight away...says ios is in review...it will be a couple of days...he says.
Really just looking now for a way to post images....tried postimage.org...nice site....will try again.
Thank you...will look at ...if I were a leaf...
@bluejay im online in the chat if you need help but if you need a place to upload image here's an old post I made - I suggest you use imgur - it's very very easy to use. Good luck.
Thank you....will give it another go.....no worries....thank you for the offer...maybe in chat later on...we will see. Thank you for the post and will try imgur as well.
@bluejay, no worries, I'm leaving it on
but I'll be away from my comp for dinner :D
Good luck i hope you could post!