Yesterday I posted a photo of a male Common Whitetail dragonfly that was hovering in the air to fight off rivals and protect the female with which he had mated as she deposited her eggs in the water, a practice know as hover guarding. In some dragonfly species, the male will remain attached to the female throughout the entire process of oviposition, a process known as contact guarding. In other dragonfly species, the female is entirely on her own to deposit the eggs.
Black Saddlebags dragonflies (Tramea lacerata) use a different technique for guarding that I like to call “release and catch.” After mating is completed, the male and female Black Saddlebags fly together over the water in a tandem position, with the male in the front. At certain moments, for reasons that I cannot determine, the male releases the female and she drops down to the water and taps it to release one or more eggs. As she rises up out of the water, the male catches the female and reattaches the tip of his abdomen to the back of her head. They continue to fly in tandem and repeat this cycle multiple times.
On Saturday I was fortunate to be able to capture this sequence of shots that documents the entire process. Most of the time these dragonflies chose spots that were too far away for me to photograph them, but in this case they flew a bit closer to the edge of the pond where I was standing. As you probably suspect, I had to crop in a good amount to highlight the action for you, given that I was shooting with my trusty 180mm macro lens, which has a more limited reach than the lens that I use when photographing birds.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Well, that’s ridiculously cool! Incredible that you were able to catch this and release such photos to us. 🙂
Now that’s a photographic series !!!!
Thanks, Ted. I knew what was going to happen, but I did not know exactly when and where. It was the kind of situation where I was tracking the subject and managed to time it pretty well and shot through the sequence. My Canon 50D does not shot as many frames per second as more modern DSLRs, but it was sufficient and these were consecutive frames, with the exception of the first one which was a few shots before the others. I believe that I was manually focusing when I shot the sequence.
That 50D has a good feel when holding though. I still use my 70D when I don’t need to shoot fast wildlife. I can think of all the things my other gear does… but the 70D, it just fits real good LOL.
Nice series of images Mike! And useful info also!
Amazing!
Nice shots!
You must have been over the moon when this sequence unfolded for you within range. This is a masterful series, totally captivating!
I have seen this happen before and captured a few shots in the past of parts of the process, but this was the first time I have gotten photos of virtually the entire process. It is hard to describe to others what happens, but I think the photos make it much clearer what is going one. Yes, I was thrilled when I pulled the images up on my computer and saw that they were mostly in focus.
Interesting!
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This series of dragonfly “how tos” was very nice work by you, Mike. I’ve seen this a few times but never was able to capture any of the action and you did a great job.
Thanks, Steve. I am sure that it comes as no surprise to you that it took me a lot of shots, a lot of time, a lot of patience, and some good luck to capture a series like that. There is a certain amount of hand and eye coordination required to track a moving subject in the camera’s viewfinder and practice seems to help in making the process somewhat more instinctive, rather than having to think about each individual step.
In some ways, such as dragonfly photography, thinking holds us back. 🙂
When I first started to get a little more serious about photography, I remember being a bit overwhelmed by all of the things I had to think about consciously (ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focus, composition, etc.). Familiarity with my gear and with my subjects has gotten me to a point where I can make adjustments and keep shooting without thinking too much about the technical aspects, freeing me to think more about creative aspects.
What an intriguing process! I love that each species and its egg delivery has its own unique technique and name!