On Tuesday I spotted this female Common Green Darner (Anax junius) dragonfly at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the first darner that I have been able to photograph this season. Like most darners, Common Green Darners are relatively large dragonflies—about 3 inches (76 mm) in length—that spend a lot of time patrolling in the air. In fact, Common Green Darners are one of a handful of dragonflies that migrate, so that the earliest ones that we see in spring are likely to have migrated from more southern locations before local Common Green Darners have emerged.
When I first spotted this dragonfly, she was patrolling over a field of tall vegetation. I watched her fly back and forth for quite a while. When she decided to take a break, I was lucky to see where she landed.
As you can see in the photo, Common Green Darners normally hang vertically. In this case the dragonfly perched relatively close to the ground, so it was a bit of a challenge to frame the shot, particularly because I was shooting with my long telephoto zoom lens. I am quite pleased, though, with the resulting image that shows off a lot of the details of this species, including the distinctive black and blue “bullseye” in from of the dragonfly’s large compound eyes.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 