Tuesday, June 21, 2016

june jewels


When I'm lucky enough to see these damselflies
swooping and darting about like animated jewels,
it always stops me in my tracks.

The colors are incredible.
Dazzling.

I don't know much about insects,
so I did a little poking around online to find an ID for you.
It seems this is Calopteryx maculata or "ebony jewelwing."

I think "ebony-winged jewel" would better suit.
When they are in flight, their bodies glisten, green and blue,
while the wings are a black blur.

I am not fast enough to get a picture of a damselfly in flight,
but here is a glimpse of the wing/body color combination
during take-off:



Dragonflies, like this lovely visitor from last September,
tend to keep their wings open when they land:


Damselflies generally fold their wings when they are at rest:



But they don't seem to "rest" for very long!
For every image of a damselfly, I took two of a leaf or rock where a damselfly had been resting a nanosecond earlier.
I feel very lucky to have these images to share :)



~~~~~

10 comments:

  1. We have many species, and I love them because they also catch mosquitoes! Never succeeded in getting anything like a pic though!these are lovely

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  2. Wow! That was definitely some fast fingered photography to manage to catch them. Beautiful!

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    1. My thinking is, if I take many, many photographs, I'm bound to get a good one now and then! And it's certainly simpler/faster/cheaper with digital than it was when I shot and developed and printed film, which seems like a different artform to me. I miss it sometimes, but not the hours and hours in a darkroom.

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  3. I love those photos--I too like to photograph bugs--here in FL I have gotten photos of different colored dragonflys--it the butterfly's that are hard to photo with their wings open!!!
    sometimes I do get lucky with them though!!
    Love and laughter, di

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    1. Dragonflies are amazing! That red one landed on my hand, flew away, came back to my hand again, flew away again, several times. Just having a visit on a sunny day!

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  4. Good photos of the damselfly! The body looks wrapped in satin ribbon.

    Must be the weather, I've had to look up more bugs this year than ever.

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  5. Wow! What an amazing bug. Gorgeous! I didn't realize that about damselflies and dragonflies and their wings. Very interesting.

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  6. Great photos. That is one pretty damselfly. We get some tiny ones here during winter, but nothing like this emerald one. Amazing!

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  7. I love dragonflies! We don't see many damselflies around here, but thank you for the education!

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