Invaders!
About an hour after I arrived at work, I walked through the front office only to hear a very loud buzz/rattle as two rather large and winged somethings divebombed me.
I scampered out of the danger radius and looked back to discover not one but two rather large and pretty dragonflies. A beautiful electric blue with incredibly showy iridescent wings. They were easily four inches long, and quite insistant that they wanted to get through the diffuser panels and right into the flourescent lighting fixtures themselves. What a racket they made rattling against the light fixtures!
Turning off the lights and opening the doors didn't do a lot of good - but it got the dragonflies to settle down and relax for a while. Chasing them didn't do a lot of good either - they had no interest in either the back shop or the front door. Eventually we ended up making a large trap out of chicken wire and skid wrap, and using it to trap them against the ceiling. A quick ladder trip up with a piece of cardboard and a trip outdoors took care of the first one. It was child's play.
The second dragonfly had apparently seen the fate of his small winged friend, and wasn't going to have a lot to do with the trap. He went around the office a few times, and then started to batter himself against the window on top of the door. He moved a bit lower, we opened the door and he exited without any fuss at all.
Congratulating ourselves we walked into the back shop only to have three more come zooming in the back door. They took a quick look around, and then decided that the great outdoors was perhaps a bit more interesting.
It's a little odd to see such an abundance of large dragonflies in Calgary - I must admit that while I have had every other winged creature check out the open door (usually the yellow and black striped variety), dragonflies had previously not taken shelter in the building.
I scampered out of the danger radius and looked back to discover not one but two rather large and pretty dragonflies. A beautiful electric blue with incredibly showy iridescent wings. They were easily four inches long, and quite insistant that they wanted to get through the diffuser panels and right into the flourescent lighting fixtures themselves. What a racket they made rattling against the light fixtures!
Turning off the lights and opening the doors didn't do a lot of good - but it got the dragonflies to settle down and relax for a while. Chasing them didn't do a lot of good either - they had no interest in either the back shop or the front door. Eventually we ended up making a large trap out of chicken wire and skid wrap, and using it to trap them against the ceiling. A quick ladder trip up with a piece of cardboard and a trip outdoors took care of the first one. It was child's play.
The second dragonfly had apparently seen the fate of his small winged friend, and wasn't going to have a lot to do with the trap. He went around the office a few times, and then started to batter himself against the window on top of the door. He moved a bit lower, we opened the door and he exited without any fuss at all.
Congratulating ourselves we walked into the back shop only to have three more come zooming in the back door. They took a quick look around, and then decided that the great outdoors was perhaps a bit more interesting.
It's a little odd to see such an abundance of large dragonflies in Calgary - I must admit that while I have had every other winged creature check out the open door (usually the yellow and black striped variety), dragonflies had previously not taken shelter in the building.