Fall Color ABCedarian: B

BABY BLUE

Two-for-One

I've seen it before.

I've never been lucky enough to snap it.

Today I was.

Visioning

I
What do you see in this picture?

 

And in this one?

A shadow and little stream in the first; a beautiful damselfly in the second.

I suspect you did not see this Great Spreadwing in the upper left of the first photo, but I did when I stood there this afternoon. I saw it because of my previous experiences and practiced vision.

II
I recently watched an episode of Morse with a scene in a stately home's picture gallery. On entering, the detective Morse said, "The pictures. Aren't they beautiful?" The gentleman in the room looked around at the paintings, turned, and replied, "Are they? I live here, so I know they're valuable. But I don't know their beauty. I can't see it." "Pity," Morse responded.

III
Keith Woods' refined and moving personal essay reminded me again of the different ways we see and feel depending on unique perspectives. The writer comes to new understanding about his father's complex relationship (and his own) to his "flawed homeland," not always visible to others. 

IV
Even the essay's meaning and beauty were not visible to other commenters to the Facebook post of the essay.

I agree with Morse. Pity.

V 
Aired on and published by NPR, the essay is well worth reading and hearing.

Seasonal Warnings

The Great Spreadwing and water know: fall is coming.

Seeing IS Believing

Dennis Paulson's Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East told me that Great Spreadwings (fall flyers) oviposit quite high, something I'd not have really known had I not seen it myself.

Just above Abbo's Alley's small stream, two Shadow Darners flew and fought, hovering and slapping, zooming up and out and back again. Finally, one remained when the other moved upstream. 

Snapping again and again to get one focused shot, I suddenly saw a mating pair of Greats on a leaf the darner punched.

Then the pair flew straight into my face and shot upwards, into a tree. 

Extending and retracting my zoom, I got my shots and later posted them on the Southeastern Odes Facebook group page. Almost immediately, another expert (Ed Lam) "liked" one of my photographs, exciting me almost as much as my good luck.

It's so good to be truly home, to be truly walking, to be watching odonates again.

Is it just me?

Or do all ode enthusiasts go to a spot, immediately see an elusive bug, fail to get the camera on and in focus in time, and then stand glued to the same spot, shooting and shooting, while said ode taunts and teases and then disappears?

Thank heavens for the hungry Great Spreadwing, content to eat, buzz out, grab, fly back, eat, buzz out . . . ad infinitum.

And then, just when I have closed the camera, the Shadow Darner returns, floats around me, zooms out of range, and buzzes back one more time before disappearing over South Carolina Avenue.

Maybe I'm just special.

Yeah, right.

Proximity

Sometimes a thing can be so close that I won't notice it. My cat Bassy is the same way: point the laser beam a foot away from her and she pounces; place it on her paw and she'll never see it. Most of what I encounter every day is like this: at my paw, as it were, wonders lie unnoticed. 

(I'd be crazy, by the way, if I attended to everything without filter, and so would you.)

But sometimes, the best things literally happen right at my feet -- like this joined pair of Great Spreadwings, leafed in full sun. Surely this is their last hurrah.

Food for Thought

I
A Great Spreadwing's supper consists of many insects, including colorful beetles, and there are no leftovers.

II

For supper, I am eating beef vegetable soup, without consideration of the cattle on a feed lot or their slaughtering or their butchering or the ways in which the leftovers not suitable for human consumption might be used. I may not be able to eat it all.

III

Discover Life says this about Odonates:

Odonata have widely been objects of superstition. In Germany, odonata have had over 150 different names, including names that mean "devil's needle," "water witch," "goddess' horse," "devil's horse," and "snake killer." In England, names meaning "devil's darning needle" and "horse stinger" have been used. In Denmark, some names mean "devil's riding horse" and "goldsmith." A Swedish name means "hobgoblin fly"; long ago, the people in Sweden believed that goblins, elves and fairies lived in the woods and used dragonflies as twisting tools. Another Swedish name means "blind stinger," and comes from the belief that dragonflies can pick out your eyes or even sew them shut. Also, odonata have obviously been connected to females: "damselfly." The body shape of odonata have led them to earn names than mean "devil's steelyard" and such because they look like heavy tools. The myth is that the Devil uses them to weigh a persons soul, and when a dragonfly flies around your head, you should expect serious punishment

IV

Something to ponder: just who is the "devil's" instrument when it comes to eating?

It Ain't Over Till the

last Odonate flies!

This afternoon, I went to Abbo's Alley to snap some more fall leaf porn. Before I even got out of the car, I saw a large dragonfly fly onto a leaf at creek's edge right on South Carolina Avenue. I gathered my camera and hat without ever looking away, edged out of the car, and approached. Naturally the bug took off, flew around the back of the car, and across the street. Oh well, thought, that''s that. 

I'm not sure why, but I decided to walk into the Alley by way of the creek. I went no more than 15 paces before I spotted two large damselflies on the wing, lighting on grass stems, then taking off, then lighting again. Then, like a zipper opening, a large dragonfly flew up the creek from the street: the same one I had seen minutes earlier.

After some stalking and snapping, I came home, confident that I had seen Southern Spreadwings and a Cyrano Darner, but when I downloaded the pictures and looked at them, I knew I had been wrong. Once again, I turned to Facebook, asked if I was right about the damselfly being a Great Spreadwing and the darner being a Cyrano, and almost immediately got this response, "Your darner is a male Shadow Darner (Aeschna umbrosa). You are correct that the spreadwings are Great Spreadwings (Archilestes grandis)."

All I can say is HOLY COW! Neither has been reported for my county previously! The count is now 35 species of dragonfly and 25 of damselfly!