Why That Ol' Flame Stakes Out the Back Yard

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.