Life can be tough and can wear you down if you are a prince, at least if you are a Prince Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca princeps). Last Saturday I spent a pretty good amount of time observing Prince Baskettails patrolling a pond at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge.
As I am wont to do, I tried to photograph them in flight and managed to get a few shots in focus. As I reviewed the images, I couldn’t help but notice that the wings of all of the dragonflies were worn down and/or damaged. I am used to seeing such damage with dragonflies that fly through thickets and heavy vegetation, but I was a little surprised to see it with dragonflies that seem to spend most of the time flying over open water.
As we move deeper into summer, I am certain to encounter more and more dragonflies with damaged wings. I am always amazed to see that such dragonflies are still capable of amazing aerial acrobatics despite their physical limitations—somehow they manage.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Good work on capturing in-flight images! It’s amazing, as you point out, how some dragons can even fly with what appears to be significant wing damage.
Nature is surprising.
Thanks, Wally. I am pretty patient and persistent, which really helps when trying to photograph dragonflies in flight. It take a lot of shots and a lot of luck to get any decent shots at all.
Great captures, Mike. I can barely get birds in flight.
Birds in flight would appear to be easier, but I know from experience that many of them are almost impossible to shoot. Fortunately there are a few birds, like geese and herons, that are relatively big and fly somewhat slowly and predictably. Still, it is tough to photograph any moving subject, as I found when trying to capture images of a child at play.
Thanks Mike.