Return to the Honey-hole

In one lovely visit to my two favorite ponds, these friends flew: Blue Corporals, Carolina Saddlebags, Common Green Darners, Fragile Forktails, Citrine Forktails, and Southern Spreadwings. The sky, and the grasses, and the bare limbs, and the just visible beginnings of leaves, and . . . so much to love. I could spend the day there and come home happy, even if the ode photos are all terrible.

I keep thinking "any minute now"

but all I've seen are
bees
flies
one beetle
two just-waking overwintering wasps (in my own house and one of those stung me)
Fragile Forktails almost three weeks ago
and one fat tick embedded in me

I grow impatient for the odonate explosion

Another Conversation with a Stranger

Having discovered the Fragile Forktails (who must have emerged in the rain when I did not), I wandered round Lake Cheston to the cattails and grasses near the beach. Sure enough, two males and a female, sunning and eating and cavorting. I leaned in to snap, and I spoke to them as I usually do.

Then I wandered across the beach to the next set of cattails and grasses (sedges?). On hearing two distinct and distinctly small plops I looked in the water and lo and behold there it was -- a little toad (at least I think it was a toad). Again, I leaned and leaned in and apologized for disturbing it and again when it sank out sight.

By this time a woman and her two children had rounded the walk.

"May we know what you're photographing? We heard you talking over there," gesturing, "and over here."

I smiled. "Yes, I have a habit of doing that."

The children came close.

We made a tight circle so I could show them my camera screen. "I was taking pictures of the first damselflies I've seen this year -- Fragile Forktails. They're less than an inch in length."

There were suitable gasps and comments like "Beautiful."

Then I showed them the toad and where it had been.

The children were delighted as was the mother, who introduced herself (I know who she is and have met her husband -- both musicians). We chatted, as one does in a small place, and discovered we have mutual friends.

Then she said, "We're moving to Prague this summer, but we come here nearly every day, so we'll probably see you."

"Permanently?" I asked.

"Yes," she said."For me it's home, and it's about family and opportunity."

And with that we parted.

(I hope we do indeed meet again for another delightful conversation.)

Just Like That

In little more than 35 minutes, stolen between house cleaning and the vet's visit, I watched six Blue Corporals and one Fragile Forktail emerge from Lake Cheston.

Blue Corporal teneral

Lake Cheston

Fragile Forktail, right after emergence

I am struck every spring that it's like waiting for the first pop of corn in the pot.

Only better because the delicious servings just keep coming and coming and coming.

In the Category of: So What Did You Do Today?

1. Got a replacement crown. 

2. Ate lunch.

3. Had my hair cut.

4. And sat in the mud because . . . Fragile Forktails! At one point I counted seven females!

Springing at Three Venues

I
Lake Cheston

blue sky, budded trees, warm temperature, toad strings waving the water, Oscar swimming, and one Fragile Forktail sunning

II
J's Garden

twin-leaf, bloodroot, grape hyacinth, daffodils, vinca, celadine poppy, budded trillium

III
Abbo's Alley

Virginia spring-beauty, vinca, daffodils, Japanese magnolia, bluebells

It's been a long wait.

Aggressive Appetites

I
I am so glad the Internet didn't exist when I was a child, as I have a voracious appetite for random facts. I read and re-read the encyclopedia, studied the dictionary page by page, looked closely and often at National Geographic, and wore out the atlas as a child.

I would be hopeless today.

I am hopeless today.

I often forget what I log in to look for because I find one thing, and then another, and then another.

II
Some folks hunger for fame or money or advancement in a job.

One of my problems is that I have never had ambition. To do anything or be anything.

But there are things I cannot resist -- popcorn and chocolate, among them.

III
Dragonflies and damselflies are ravenous. 

Throughout their life cycles, they eat and eat and eat, to move through developmental stages or instars. When they emerge from the water, they eat to achieve sexual maturity, to reproduce, to extend their species. And I mean they eat and eat and eat everything they can snag. (They are flesh-eaters.)

This female Fragile Forktail snatched a large winged something and found a solid perch to consume it. While I was watching and snapping a male flew straight at her head and tried to steal her prey, but to no effect. 

(The WWE is a kindergarten tantrum compared to the aggressive display of Odonates at a pond.)

IV
Appetite can become gluttony in humans, and gluttony may be physical or spiritual. "Supersize" doesn't just refer to a fast-food order. The news reports on dishonest investors and corporate executives padding their pockets, disparity of wealth in this country, competition among stars and athletes for face-time all point to aggressive appetites.

V
Some of us need to go on diets.

But not my Odonates.

Panasonic GH3: Day 4, or Big Eyes

My friend and I saw the movie Big Eyes tonight, and though both of us remember those kitchy waifs and all the press they earned, the back story escaped me entirely. I'm not sure that Margaret Keane cared what art critic John Canaday said about her paintings. She said, or the actress playing her said, several times in the film that the paintings come from inside the artist.

I tried photographing some big eyes today, not very successfully. A 90mm macro is no match to a Fragile Forktail's three-quarters of an inch to one inch. I kept creeping closer and closer and more and more plant material kept getting in the way. In fact, I finally gave up and grabbed the superzoom. 

What you see isn't always what you get: a lesson from my frustrating photowalk this afternoon and the movie tonight.

I Got Them Rainy Day Blues

Some wait out the rain

while others embrace it.

Today, I embrace the horse's way.

Exercising Patience

By this time two years ago, I had already seen Fragile Forktails.

This year, it is ice, or fog, or rain, or snow.

I must wait, just as the buds on the Kwanzan cherry and crabapple do.

And like the Little Engine That Could, I feel myself chugging up and up and up toward spring, thinking Soon, soon, soon.

The Power of Positive Thinking

I am not a fan of the heart-leaved lilies infesting the lake. Once confined to a small area in one inlet, they now circle the shoreline, popping up and spreading like a teenager's untreated pimples.

However, watching one female Fragile Forktail using one leaf as a platform for oviposition provided a little relief. A little, mind you, not a lot.

But even one small happy observation on yet one more rainy gray day almost made me see the sunny side of the plague of pads.

That Kind of Day

when sky is so blue you remember if only a moment that it's only blue for us on Earth and not black and this blue is ultramarine and sun so bright it casts hard shadows all day sparkling water and burning fall leaves and grasses like dry ice, cool and hot colors all at once so creatures slip in and our like beach bathers only in search of heat not a tan, and my camera lens can't determine if there's too much light or not enough, and everything looks beautiful, especially the two Clamp-tipped Emeralds, those big dragonflies I see up close and personal for the very first time:

that's the kind of day it was.

Somethin's Cookin'

1.
Tea at 6 AM. A zipping sound. The cats. With a paper ball. Or so I thought.

Tea at 7:50 am. Zapping joined by a tell-tale burning smell. I followed my nose to the socket where the phone plugs. Warm to the touch, hot even. I pulled out, flipped the breakers.

Forty-five minutes late, the electrician replaced this with a new one.

"It could have been happening all night," I said.

"It could," he said.

"Is this the kind of thing that burns a house down?"

"No," he said. "It'd burn itself out and trip the breaker."

An electric start to the day.

2.
A walk around the lake. A dragonfly nymph emerged from the water; a spider attacked it almost immediately. The dragonfly fought to climb the grass stem anyway, a hopeless struggle to reach its final stage of life. A hand's width to the right, a Lancet Clubtail warmed on a leaf; an arm's length to the left, a young Fragile Forktail did the same. I watched all three in morning light, flooding the scene, Act I and III with no II.

3.

Underneath the metal edge of the bridge, a dragonfly held and spun in the wind.

"What are you looking at?" one of the walkers asked.

"Here, look where I'm pointing," I said, and walked the few feet further on. "See the dragonfly?"

The other walker said, "Wow," but the first looked straight down toward the water instead of underneath.

"Move your hand gently," I said, "so you don't touch the dragonfly. Then look under."

"Oh! Now I see it! Cool!"

They smiled and thanked me before walking on.

4.
Before locking the shop, I thought I'd take a couple more shots. And finally, something clicked. A macro that works.

5.
As I used to tell students about writing, "First make a mess. Then see what you can do with it." That's what I did all day today: 300+ messes I made (and one near-miss mess electricity made) and a couple of shots worth saving.

Lake Cheston ABCedarian Day 10: J

J is for Joy!

At least two Odonates have emerged and matured!

Fragile Forktail

Common Green Darner

Weekly Roundup

WARNING: Do not read unless you're curious about my life as Robley the Odonate Hunter.

Taking a cue from a friend who became interested in Odonates last year, I am trying to keep a better record of what I see and when. Every Sunday (unless something extraordinary happens), I plan on composing a weekly roundup.

I saw my first Odonate (a brand new male Fragile Forktail) on the woods path below the pavilion. I also saw my first emergence on Tuesday, quite by accident. I stuttered up the dam when I saw a snake racing so fast under a rock that I couldn't identify it. The better part of safety meant a new route, right to the area when a Springtime Darner was still warming up prior to first flight. Last year's Springtime Darner (the only one I saw emerge) began the process at noon, so it appears that their habit is to fly by mid-afternoon.

On Wednesday, I saw three Blue Corporals (just emerged) whiz by me opposite the beach, and then I came upon several Fragile Forktails (male and female) as well as two Citrine Forktails. I had forgotten just how difficult both are to photograph because of their tiny size: the fragile's length ranges from 1.2 to 1.5 inches while the Citrine runs from .8 to 1.1 inch. Either would easily fit between the first and second knuckles of my index finger. Briefly two Common Green Darners patrolled the beach, but disappeared when the Tree Swallows arrived, diving and swooping.

Cool temperatures and rain on Thursday meant all quiet at Lake Cheston, but on Friday I spied one nymph (Stream Cruiser) on a rock and by Saturday, Blue Corporals were popping out on both sides of the beach shoreline, Forktails flitted in the grasses, and one nymph swam and parked himself on a grass.

Today, again, rain and cool temperatures resulted in no sightings. Just like spring, the Odonate season is slow, but my joy is great.

Blue Corporal

Female Fragile Forktail

Male Fragile Forktail