A small group of Common Green Darner dragonflies (Anax junius) was active on Monday at Occoquan Regional Park, including a couple that, after mating, was depositing eggs in the floating vegetation. The male (the one with the blue abdomen) holds onto the female while she does the actual work and then they fly off together still attached in the “tandem” position to another patch of vegetation.
Common Green Darners are a migratory species and I suspect that these particular dragonflies were part of that migration. Most people are aware of the migratory pattern of Monarch butterflies, but are unaware of the fact that Common Green Darners follow a similar pattern. The Science News website provides a good overview of that migration.
“At least three generations make up the annual migration of common green darner dragonflies. The first generation emerges in the southern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean starting around February and flies north. There, those insects lay eggs and die, giving rise to a second generation that migrates south until late October. (Some in that second generation don’t fly south until the next year, after overwintering as nymphs.) A third generation, hatched in the south, overwinters there before laying eggs that will start the entire process over again.”
I was quite fortunate that the patches of vegetation where the dragonflies were depositing the eggs were relatively close to the edge of the pond, so I was able to capture the shots of the dragonflies in action. The second shot was one that I snapped as the couple zoomed by—long-time readers of my blog know that I love to try to capture images of dragonflies while they are flying.
The final image shows one a male Common Green Darner that was flying all around the small pond, searching for food or a mate (or maybe both). It is a fun challenge to try to track and photograph a dragonfly in flight and I felt a little rusty after spending the winter photographing birds. I was therefore quite thrilled when this shot turned out so well. Some newer mirrorless cameras have tracking systems that lock focus on moving subjects, but my trusty Canon 7D DSLR has 2009 technology, so it is a little trickier for me to get shots in—it is definitely a “hands-on” process.
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Mike Powell 