As I've said before (as you know Bob) I grew up in a hot, often humid climate.   I was a healthy kid, outdoors a lot, and though I certainly didn't enjoy the sticky hot nights before my mother put in a window AC, I could play hard outdoors in the summer without a problem.  Through high school, college, and even moving back to Texas after leaving ( Read more... )

I went out to the yard for something else, and spotted a pair of big dragonflies zooming around clasped to one another.  That sent me back in for the camera...eventually I'd love to get pictures of every one of our species ovipositing, to prove reproduction is occurring.

This pair were Common Green Darners, familiar big green (or green and blue, in ( Read more... )

Friday, while out marking trails for an upcoming field trip that's coming here, I spotted a dragonfly I'd never seen before.  This was in late afternoon, so tricky to see and hard to photograph when it landed in a tree above my head and at a distance.  My images aren't good, but I was able to see details through binoculars that don't show in the ( Read more... )

Here's an image of the latest odonate to show up on the place...a male Fragile Forktail, Ischnura posita.  Notice the "exclamation points" on its dorsum.   The book says they're yellow-green, but against the green of a Water Plantain, they looked bright yellow to me.   Some forktails hold still a long time, allowing the photographer to improve the ( Read more... )

Another hot day today, this time with no chance of rain.  Hard blue sky, puffy white clouds that did not turn into thunderheads...definitely a normal mid-July day.

Down to the creek woods I went, not needing boots at all, and though it was hot and humid and nearly still, it was also beautiful.  Clear water in the south swamp overflow; clear water ( Read more... )

We went out when it cooled off (it was just over 90, and very humid) and spent a couple of hours wandering, taking pictures, wandering, taking pictures, wandering, sitting, wandering, taking pictures.   Started out to look at the flowering obedient plants (lovely deep rose/purple flowers) growing in the secondary drainage ditch, above the main pool ( Read more... )

Not only were the butterflies out in force yesterday, but so were dragonflies.   I saw Roseate Skimmers for the first time this year, and there were at least four of them--two squabbling over who had rights to Owl Water, and another two with the same argument over the west gully system overflow.

( Read more... )

Again, this gallery isn't yet complete...I have photographs of 33 species so far.

Let's see if the link thing works better now:  Well, no.  Ctrl V does not enter something copied into the dialog box....unless (I just discovered) you paste it into the post first, and then use Ctrl-V on it.  That works. 
Whew!

So here is the link to the Odonates ( Read more... )