Some of you may have noticed that the banner photo for this blog shows a beautiful purple damselfly, one of my favorite insects. The intense purple is really striking and is not a color that I seen very often when I am looking for wildlife to photograph. The official species name for the damselfly is Variable Dancer (Argia fumipennis), though I prefer to use the colorful and descriptive name of its most common subspecies, the Violet Dancer (Argia fumipennis violacea).
Last Thursday I was delighted to spot numerous Violet Dancers in the vegetation along the edge of a small pond at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. I even managed to photograph one on the trail surrounding the pond, as you can see in the first photo in which the damselfly is perched on a small stone. For the other two shots, I was much farther away from the damselfly. These damselflies like to perch on vegetation that overhangs the water, so I shot from a distance to avoid slipping into the pond, which has happened on occasion in the past.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Absolutely gorgeous!
Beautiful colors on such a delicate creature. Great captures.