- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sometimes the red flameskimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) will let you approach it.
Sometimes it's having a bad hair day or a bad predator/prey day or a just-leave-me-alone day and won't let you near it.
This one (below) let me approach it. "Hey," I told my new flame, "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise not to poke you, prod you or pin you. I just want to photograph you."
Of course it helps if you have:
- a fish pond or another body of water in your yard (check!)
- bamboo stakes to perch on (check!)
- a supermarket (aka pollinator garden) filled with bees, flies and other delicious insects (check!)
It also helps if you don't act like a predator. Don't go barging toward it as if you're going to take a selfie or charge toward it carrying a big stick (or tripod).
"When I was a kid, I used to call that dragonfly the 'Radio Antenna dragonfly' because when I was a kid, all cars had radio antenna and this dragonfly like to land on it," said Bohart Museum of Entomology associate and naturalist Greg Kareofelas, who takes incredible images of dragonflies, butterflies and other insects. (See his work on posters at the Bohart Museum, available for purchase.) "I now have a couple of sticks, in the back yard here (in Davis) and they function the same way and the dragonfly likes to perch on them."
Agreed! Every garden should have a few bamboo stakes drilled into the ground--perfect for perching.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You never know what you'll see in your pollinator garden.
That's why it's always a good idea to carry a camera with you, or you might miss a bit of drama. Not in drama queens, but in drama kings.
Take the case of the male flameskimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) perched on a bamboo stake in our yard on Memorial Day. The dragonfly is sunning himself, warming his flight muscles. Periodically he loops to grab an insect and return to his perch to eat it.
Whoa! What's this? A Gulf Fritillary butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)--probably a male searching for a female or a territorial male protecting his turf--is rapidly approaching. The flameskimmer isn't about to move. After all, there's a "dragon" in his name and hunting is his game. He holds his ground. Er, his perch.
The Gulf Frit moves closer and closer. Soon it's a red blur against stationary red.
Oops! Right color. Wrong species.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was windy enough to trigger a small craft advisory.
Yet here comes a flameskimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) around noon on Monday, Memorial Day, circling our little bee garden.
He chases a few flying insects around and then perches on a bamboo stake to eat them.
Hmm, I thought, maybe I can capture an image of Big Red in flight? Will he cooperate? I've always wanted to photograph a flameskimmer in flight, but they're usually (1) too fast (2) too far away or (3) they zig when I think they'll zag and they zag when I think they'll zig.
Plus, they are leery of big dark objects (cameras) with long metal protrusions (lenses).
For the past decade, we've prepared well for our dragonfly visitors. They like our fish pond, our bee garden and the assorted bamboo stakes we've placed around the garden. They especially like the all-you-can-eat insect smorgasbord.
Big Red kept returning to Bamboo Stake No. 2 (bamboo stakes are sort of like pot holes—you can name them if you want).
Using my Nikon D800 camera with a 200mm macro lens, I focused on where I thought Big Red would land.
Decision time.
Bamboo Stake No. 1: Probably not. Too high.
Bamboo Stake No. 3: No, a little short.
Bamboo Stake No. 2: Just right.
Big Red obliged. By now he was not afraid of me—he figured, and rightfully so--that I had no culinary interest in him. And neither would I poke 'em, prod 'em or pin 'em. With the wind tousling his wings, he aimed straight for Bamboo Stake No. 2.
Got 'em. In flight.
Said dragonfly aficionado Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist emeritus: “What this photo really shows is that insects do not fly simply by ‘flapping' their wings. This guy's right wings are vertical to the body, but in the same plane, while the left wings actually are down-swept and a bit out of synchrony. The ability of insects to rotate their wings in their sockets allows them to change roll, pitch and yaw as do the moveable parts of airplanes. But, dragonflies can do it instantaneously.”
Commented Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis: "I like how clearly you can see how tightly the one is holding its legs against its body."
The dragonfly vanished right before our residential scrub jays returned. The jays are rearing their young in nearby trees, and the young, as you know, get the munchies. In fact, they're always hungry. Ravenous. Famished.
Have you ever seen a bird nail a dragonfly? Butterflies, yes. Dragonflies, no.
“Birds can change direction in flight pretty quickly, but usually not quickly enough to catch a dragonfly in flight,” Mussen commented. “If it stays stuck to the post, it may be in real trouble.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What a beauty.
But not nearly as striking as her male counterpart.
The flame skimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) owned a perch on a bamboo stake last Tuesday in residential Davis.
Davis resident Gary Zamzow, a dynamite insect photographer (especially bumble bees), pointed his Pentax camera at the insect, just inches away.
The dragonfly did not move.
“The female flame skimmers are not as intensely orange as the males are and they also have the expansions on the 7th abdominal tergite that you can see in your picture (below),” said senior museum entomologist Steve Heydon of the Bohart Museum of Entomology (http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/), University of California, Davis.
If you like dragonflies, you may want to purchase a dragonfly poster at the museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge building on Crocker Lane, or online at its gift shop. It features 18 species of dragonfies, ranging from the common whitetail and green darner to the Western river cruiser and the bison snaketail. And, of course the flame skimmer.
Entomology doctoral candidate Fran Keller designed the poster with images provided and donated to the museum by naturalist Greg Kareofelas of Davis.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a bird, it's a plane...
It's not Superman. It's a flame skimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata).
We spotted this dragonfly in our yard recently and crouched down for a low angle, framing it against the sky.
This is one insect that everyone notices and admires.
Except maybe its prey...