As we have moved deeper and deeper into autumn, the number of dragonflies at Huntley Meadows Park has continued to drop and the sole survivor now appears to be the Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum).
During my most recent visit to the park on the 1st of December, I observed quite a few Autumn Meadowhawks, primarily perched on the synthetic boards of the boardwalk that runs through several portions of the marshland.
Some of them, however, seemed to really like one of the signs adjacent to the boardwalk that provides tips on wildlife watching at the park. The Autumn Meadowhawk in the first image seems to be fascinated by the photo of the crayfish at which it is intently staring. (This photo is an homage to fellow photographer Walter Sanford, who did a similar posting recently with the same sign and the same species of dragonflies.)

A month ago, I probably would have photographed the dragonfly with my macro lens, but now I have a telephoto zoom lens on my camera most of the time. I decided to use the dragonfly as a test for my new Tamron 150-600mm lens and took some shots at 600mm to see if I could capture any of the details of this small dragonfly, which is at most about 1.4 inches (35mm) long. If you click on the image below, which is a slightly cropped and lightly edited version of the original, you can see that the lens did a pretty good job with the details and you can even see the dragonfly’s tiny feet.

Autumn Meadowhawks frequently seem to be quite tolerant of the presence of people and sometimes will even seek it out and land on you. I will often try to coax one to perch on my finger and one of my fellow photographers, Lova Brown Freeman, took these wonderful shots of a successful attempt. Thanks, Lova. I like the fact that her final shot gives you an idea of context in which you this activity took place. I am usually so anxious to zoom in close on the action, with macro or with telephoto, that I frequently forget to provide viewers with a view of the overall setting.


© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
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