Yesterday I travelled with fellow photographer Cindy Dyer to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. While Cindy focused on the numerous tulips and other spring flowers that were in bloom, I immediately headed for the ponds in search of frogs, turtles, snakes, and dragonflies.
On one of my trips around a small pond I finally encounter my first damselfly of the season—a male Fragile Forktail damselfly (Ischnura posita). Most damselflies are hard to identify, but Fragile Forktails of both sexes are pretty easy to identify because both sexes have interrupted pale should stripes that look like exclamation points.
Eventually I spotted several other Fragile Forktails and was able to get some decent shots of them, despite their small size—they are a very small species with a body length of only 0.8 to 1.1 inches (21-29 mm). I was hoping to get some shots of the damselflies perched on vegetation, but in all of the photos I managed to get the damselflies were perched on rocks.
I was happy later in the to spot a Common Green Darner dragonfly in flight, but was not able to get a shot of it. From my perspective, my first dragonfly of the season does not “count” unless I am able to capture a photo of it. So this week I will be out in the wild again, seeking to capture my first dragonfly shot of the season.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Nice Images Mike! Nice that Damsel & Dragon season is coming soon!
Thanks, Reed. I like to start the season as early as I can, so I look pretty hard starting in later March and early April. 🙂
Now I know it’s spring!
Happy for you, Mike. There are lovely tiny red damsels here and I see them pretty regularly when we hike near water.
Very nice captures on those rock backgrounds, Mike, and woohoo for starting the season!
Love the exclamation mark id, I did look for them.. and found them! 🙂
It is cool when there is something so distinctive to help with identification. So often the the differences between species are really subtle and hard to see clearly.