Dragonflies sometimes look like aliens to me, with their giant eyes and other worldly flying skills. My initial impression of this photo was that it looked like an alien landscape from a science fiction movie—the terrain perfectly matched the subject.
So what’s the reality? It’s a female Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) in the process of depositing eggs in the shallow water at the edge of a pond. She is hovering over the water and then will drop down and dip the tip of her abdomen in the water, causing the concentric ripples you see in the image. A short while later, she repeats the process. What you don’t see in the photo is her mate, who is hovering nearby, keeping watch over her as she ensures the continuity of his genetic line.
There will be more aliens.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Like a chopper over water!
like the capture of the speed of the wings
Thanks. I didn’t necessarily intend to have the shutter speed as low as it was, but I do like the way that it turned out–fast enough to have the body in decent focus and slow enough to have some motion blur with the wings.
The ripples on the water do look other worldly.