Dragonflies seem to love to perch on this piece of rusted rebar that sticks out of the water at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. I really like the juxtaposition of the man-made and natural elements in this shot of a male Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera) that I spotted on Monday.
You can’t see it really well in the first shot, but there is a spider on the rebar in addition to the dragonfly. I got a better shot of the spider later in the day. I don’t know for sure that it could capture the dragonfly, but it’s a potentially dangerous situation for the dragonfly (and I have photographed several dragonflies that had fallen prey to spiders in the past).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
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That is a very accurately named dragonfly as the wings do look entirely like amber. That is a very long-legged spider.
Nice work, Mike! Was this a “bonus bug,” or did you see the spider lurking there when you made your initial shots of the Amberwing? Whichever, I’m quite confident that your spider was a long-jawed orb weaver (Tetragnatha species), a number of which I’ve seen at our cabin in northern Minnesota. Here’s a link to the closer shot: https://krikitarts.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/webnesday-8-part-2/, and click on the link to the previous post to see the web. Cheers!
Initially the spider was a “bonus bug,” because I didn’t notice it in my first shots. It was only later, when I had circled around the pond that I saw the spider. I was a little surprised when I was reviewing my shots to see that the spider had been there all along.
By the way, I doubt that the dragonfly was in any danger from the spider, since these guys aren’t active hunters, but rather depend on their webs to ensnare their prey. I’m actually rather surprised that your subject had chosen a perch like this, which seems to have no side branches to enable spanning a web. But then again, I can only see its tip in your photo.