Love the One You're With

Reading about a mating frenzy is one thing. Looking at photos is another. Seeing for myself still another. Give me the latter any day, even if my camera's lens isn't strong enough to do the job.

Witness: Seven different pairs of mating bluets, all gathering in a foot-and-a-half circle of shallow water and needle into which the females dipped to deposit their eggs. Lying down and leaning out over the lake edge, I felt a bit paparazzi-ish, as if hanging out of a helicopter at Hugh Hefner's estate.

Witness: A female Eastern Pondhawk depositing her eggs close to the shoreline, her mate hovering over her, protecting his successful fathering.

When another male torpedoed into them and all took off into the trees, I thought I had lost her, but just before stepping on the last small footbridge bingo! there she was, two feet away. Doesn't she look pleased with herself?

As I am with myself.