Love the One You’re Near

My pursuit of dragonflies continues (whether darners, dashers, clubtails, spiketails, emeralds, skimmers, chasers, cruisers or petaltails and good grief who knew there were so many types just in Canada?). It’s usually an opportunistic pursuit. I might happen upon them while wandering aimlessly with my camera in hand, which maybe happens more often than it should. I might seize upon them when an intended photo-shoot is a bust, which definitely happens more often than it should.

In this case the intended targets — red-winged blackbirds — had decamped from their usual summer habitat: a grassy verge around the small pond adjacent to our usual home-away-from-home.

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Perfect RWBB habitat, no? You’d think.

Were they gone for a vacation or gone for the season? It hardly mattered, since I couldn’t wait upon the possibility of their return. It seems a shame. The light was so bright that I might have been able to get a sharp bird-in-flight shot, but there were no birds.

But the dragonflies were out and about, abundantly. If this fine fellow (?) were in Ontario I’d guess Autumn Meadowhawk; in Alberta, I’m guessing Western Meadowhawk.

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Given their behaviour and mine, it’s easiest to catch dragonflies from above. Easiest, but least attractively, perhaps. In my view, the spot where their wings attach/grow seems to offer a glimpse into a slightly unfinished interior. A glimpse I’d do without, given any option. That’s why I usually focus, literally and metaphorically, on the wings, while trying to avert my eyes from the icky bits.

Frailty veined in gold:
no compression strength, and yet
they power liftoff.

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6 Responses to Love the One You’re Near

  1. Tom Watson says:

    Isabel
    I love the opening line of your haiku: “Frailty veiled in gold.”
    Tom

  2. What an excellent photo of a dragonfly! They are often quite skittish. I love the cattails – a favourite of mine.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Judith – 🙂 It *was* a bit of a dance, with me trying to get closer to fill the frame and the dragonfly being just a bit twitchy about being loomed over by a giant creature.

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