And it was a real beauty that landed in a strange spot under the washing line roll.
In here you will see a dragonfly called a Stream Hawker (Pinheyschna subpopillata) (5 shots). And then I also have a young flying Citrus Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio demodocus) below the dragonfly (4 shots).
Just the other day, we were discussing the strange absence of dragonflies, as usually at this late stage of our spring season there are many to be seen. The locals call the dragonflies the messengers of summer season arriving soon, but with our strange weather anything can happen. October is the start of our summer season, and this guy was 2 weeks late. So, you can see how happy I was to get the first view of a dragonfly right here at home, in our back garden.
Come and see.
At first sight I thought that he was injured as you can see that his right front leg appeared to be gone (2 shots below).
But no, as I moved around to get him from another angle, you can see that both his legs are fine.
I took a closeup of the wing engine on his back, and the two little white spots are there on the engine to scare predators as it looks like he is watching them. That whole wing engine also resembles a monster face.
Now for something more peaceful.
This is the young Citrus Swallowtail Butterfly that I mentioned in the introduction. There were two of them, and I got two shots of each of them.
And this is the other one below. Let's hope that both will make it to the big adult stage.
Let me tell you that it is not easy to get insects in flight, and quite often I blur the shots. These butterfly shots came out not too bad and it is quite upsetting, especially when I have a great shot of anything and when I download on the PC the shot is blurred. But then again, I just have to accept it and carry on. Mind you, I also get many other unblurred shots that you have seen in my posts.
They say that there are thousands of dragonfly species worldwide, and they are all pollinators, not only that but as I have said before, if you see dragonflies near water then it means that the water is clean. In this case, the Stream Hawker Dragonfly above spends most of its time in flight, cruising up and down on rivers, and at times they form swarms when there are many insects flying upon the water.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
We hope that everyone will have a great Friday, and a peaceful weekend.
Photos and words by Zac Smith. No AI and no Photoshop. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
Until next time. Shalom!