A dark female dragonfly in full sun. Grasses and waist-high weeds all round. A curiously lumpish abdomen.
What the heck? I thought, dismissing my initial evaluation of Common Baskettail.
For a day, I thought, This could be a county record! Maybe it's a Sundragon!
Finally, after posting to one of my Odonate Facebook groups in the morning, an answer arrived from an expert, Ed Lam: "Female abdomen shape can be quite variable as the female matures and develops eggs."
Once, and once only, I heard and saw a Baskettail drop all her eggs in the water, and I thought of my mother singing "A tisket, a tasket, a brown and yellow basket."
Exactly.
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