It may be mid-November, but one hardy dragonfly species is still around here in Northern Virginia—the Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum).
The dragonflies were unusually friendly today, perching on my sweatshirt and jeans numerous times, though they spent most of the time trying to warm themselves in the sun on the boardwalk. Here is a close-up shot of a male Autumn Meadowawk that I coaxed onto my fingertip yesterday at Huntley Meadows Park. All I had to do was slowly move my finger forward and several times a dragonfly accommodated by crawling onto the finger.
Needless to say, it was an interesting challenge trying to hold one finger out as far as I could and then focus and shoot my DSLR with the other hand. Fortunately I had switched to my macro lens—my arms would not have been long enough to get within the minimum focusing distance of the telephoto zoom lens that I had been using earlier in the day. Click on the photos to get a higher-resolution look at the details of the dragonfly’s compound eyes.
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Mike Powell 
the world’s fastest insect 🙂
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Another WOW photo
I wonder what attracted them to your finger. Warmth, maybe?
Warmth? Curiosity? Reflexes? I am not sure why, but certain dragonflies would let me get close enough to them to give a slight nudge with my fingertip and they would climb aboard. Others would fly away as soon as you started to get close to them.
How lovely to have one on your finger! Usually, the slightest movement and they are off.
It was fascinating to have one in that position. I was able to look through the wings from the underside and to examine the dragonfly up close. I don’t know why, but certain species of dragonflies seem willing to let people get close to them without immediately flying away.
They had to be some geriatric dragonflies to have lasted so long into the fall. Probably just cold and tired, your finger was a welcome roost site.
They were pretty active–a whole lot of mating was taking place. I was surprised to see them still around, given that we got down to the low 30’s the night before and that there was a film of ice on the beaver pond that morning.
You really do have a way with them.
[…] It is generally pretty cool to have a dragonfly perch on you. It can be a little disconcerting, however, when a large dragonfly like a Gray Petaltail, which can be over three inches in length (75 mm), buzzes around your head. I couldn’t avoid flinching a couple of times that day when a dragonfly landed on me. Sometimes dragonflies are so incredibly cooperative that I am able to coax them to perch on my finger, as shown in a 2013 blog posting that I called Dragonfly Whisperer. […]