Robley to the Rescue

A short walk -- less than an hour -- all that my busy day allowed brought action: two dragonfly rescues.

One required my standing at the lake edge, an area usually under water, and reaching a stick out to a Widow Skimmer teneral that had fallen into the lake.  With wings not yet hardened and strengthened, it would have drowned had I not been able to coax it onto my stick and then onto higher blades of grass.

The second, a much easier rescue of a female Blue Dasher, caught in a web at the trestle bridge.  I pushed my hand into the web, and she climbed on, dazed at first, then grooming herself.  Recovered enough so that I could urge her onto the bridge rail, she flew into a bush and then onto a cattail, where she waited for sun to warm her.

The dying or dead weighs heavily on this watcher, but saving even one -- sometimes two -- of the lovely creatures brings joy as weightless as the living being in the palm of my hand.