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Posts Tagged ‘Widow Skimmer’

We are at a time of the summer, when it is unlikely that I will see any new dragonflies for the season. Several species will emerge towards the end of the summer, but for now I see the same familiar faces over and over again.

I really am content, though, with photographing the beauty of these wonderful aerial acrobats and never grow tired of photographing the same ones over and over. Each outing with my camera is an opportunity to capture images in a different way, in different environments, and in situations with different lighting.

Last  week I was delighted to capture these images of male Widow Skimmer dragonflies (Libellula luctuosa) during a visit to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I just love the brown and white patches on the wings of these dragonflies that make them really stand out from all other dragonflies in our area.

These shots also illustrate the fact that the shapes of the front wings of most dragonflies are different from the rear wings. I suspect that the different shapes play a role in enabling the amazing flight capabilities of dragonflies, although I confess that I do not understand very well the aerodynamics of dragonfly flight—their flight seems almost magical to me.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love dragonflies with patterned wings and one of the coolest ones in our area is the male Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa), which has a distinctive combination of one dark and one white blotch per wing. Eventually the immature male in the first photo will turn bluish in color, but for now he has the brown and yellow colors that he shares with the females. The females have only a single large blotch on each wing, so usually I can tell the genders apart.

When the male first emerges, however, the white blotches may be hard to see, so I have to look more closely at other aspects of the dragonfly’s body. I am pretty confident that the dragonfly in the second photo is a very young male Widow Skimmer.

It was really easy to track a male Widow Skimmer dragonfly in the air, because its colorful wings made it look almost like a butterfly. However, the dragonfly in the first photo was remarkably skittish and would perch only momentarily in between its patrols over the waters of the small pond that I visited on Monday. Eventually my patience paid off and I was able to get a shot, albeit from a relatively long distance away.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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How do I find all of the different dragonflies that I feature on my blogs? I like to visit a variety of habitats starting early in the spring and going later into the autumn. When I am out in the wild with my camera, I try to move relatively slowly as my eyes scan the ground, the vegetation, and the air for indications of dragonflies. Most of the time I need movement for me to detect a dragonfly and track a dragonfly, but sometimes I am able to spot a perched dragonfly.

During a recent visit to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, I photographed two dragonflies that help to illustrate the importance of looking up as well as down when hunting for dragonflies. The male Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) in the first photo was perched low in some vegetation at the edge of a small pond. I watched the dragonfly fly to that perch, but my view was blocked by vegetation until I found a small visual tunnel that gave me a relatively clear view as I pointed my camera down at the dragonfly.

The male Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans) in the second photo, on the other hand, was perched high in the air in a field. Visually I had no trouble getting this shot as I pointed my camera toward the sky, but the ground was uneven and mucky and thorns were pricking my ankles as I composed the shot.

Down? Up? Straight ahead? My eyes are constantly moving when I am in target acquisition mode—that is one of the “secrets” of my dragonfly photography.

Widow Skimmer

Great Blue Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Most of the Widow Skimmer dragonflies (Libellula luctuosa) that I have seen this season have been immature males, like the one in the second photo below that I spotted on Wednesday at Occoquan Regional Park. When they are that young, their colors and wing markings match those of their female siblings.

As they mature, however, the males develop the additional white patches on their wings that are simply spectacular, like those of the mature male Widow Skimmer in the first photo that I spotted later that same day. Their bodies also turn blue and with varying degrees of pruinosity, the dusty looking coating on their abdomens that gives them a frosted look. (According to the Educalingo website, the word pruinose comes “from Latin pruīnōsus frost-covered, from pruīna hoarfrost.”)

We have moved into the lazy days of the summer, when dragonflies are now a frequent sight at most of the ponds in our area. Hopefully you are seeing them too. Most of those dragonflies are probably from the skimmer family, a large group of dragonflies in which many species tend to be habitat generalists. I will certainly be photographing lots of skimmers, but will also be keeping an eye out for more uncommon species, like the Cyrano Darner that I featured yesterday.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Things are not always as they seem. When I spotted this Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) last Friday at the edge of a pond in Fairfax County, I thought for a moment that it might be a female. After all, females have yellow and brown bodies and have one large dark blotch per wing, while males have blue bodies and have one dark and one light blotch per wing.

However, immature male Widow Skimmers look a lot like females, as is the case with many dragonfly species. The colors of “fresh” dragonflies tend to be pale and wing patterns may not have developed fully yet, so you cannot rely exclusively on those markings for identification.

The first photo below provides a pretty clear view of the “claspers” at the tip of the abdomen, which indicates that this is a male—the terminal appendages are often the most important indication of the gender of a dragonfly. For comparison purposes I have included a photo of a mature male Widow Skimmer at this same location from a 2019 posting entitled Male Widow Skimmer dragonfly. It may be a little hard to envision, but the dragonfly in the first photo will eventually grow to look like the one in the second image.

You may wonder why this species is called a “Widow Skimmer.” Someone apparently thought the dark patches on the wings looked like the mourning crepe that historically widows wore. Even the Latin name “luctuosa” means “sorrowful.”

I used to hesitate a bit when I used the the words male and widow together, wondering if perhaps I should call a male of this species a Widower Skimmer. Over time I have gotten used to this seeming incongruity and now I even happily speak about male damselflies. I wonder how those guys feel about being called damsels.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Most dragonflies have clear wings, so I am happy when I see one with dark patches on its wings. It is even more exciting to see one with both brown and white patches, like this male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) that I spotted on Saturday at Occoquan Regional Park in nearby Lorton, Virginia.

When it comes to identifying dragonfly species, I have learned to focus not only on the colors of the wing patterns, but also on the number of such patches and their shapes. In the case of the Widow Skimmer, for example, both the males and females have the brown patches on the portion of the wings nearest the body.

Why are they called “Widow Skimmers?” Someone apparently thought the dark patches looked like the mourning crepe that historically widows wore. Even the Latin name “luctuosa” means “sorrowful.”

I used to be confused by the use of a female-associated word like “widow” with males, but I have gotten used to it. In fact, I no longer give a second thought to the idea of male damselflies, though I don’t have a clue about how that label affects their self-image.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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You never know for sure when a dragonfly will let you get close. Although some species tend to be less skittish than others, each individual dragonfly seems to have its own sense of “personal space.” Some will let you get really close and may even perch on you, but others will take flight or keep their distance as soon as they detect your presence.

On a recent trip to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge I was able to see eye to eye with this handsome male Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa). I love the wonderful symmetry of looking straight into the multi-faceted eyes of a dragonfly, as in the first photo below, though I will admit that it really limits the depth of field in the image and does not let you see much of its body. For the second photo, I moved a little and shot if from a slight angle.

I tend to prefer the first image. What do you think?

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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What’s a Widow Skimmer? The name may bring to mind a gigolo chasing after rich old ladies, but it is actually a strikingly beautiful dragonfly. I spotted this handsome male Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) on Monday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge in at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

When I took this shot, I was facing toward the sun. As a result, the body of the dragonfly is almost a silhouette. What was more important to me was the detail of the wings and I am happy I was able to capture some of the detail that was revealed as the light streamed through the almost transparent wings.

widow skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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When I was first getting serious about my photography, I remember being told how important it was to isolate my subject in order to prompt the viewer to focus on what I thought was important. At this time of the year I take a lot of photos of insects and it is often a real challenge to isolate them from their backgrounds. As I was going through some images from this past weekend, I noted that I tried a couple of different approaches when photographing male Widow Skimmer dragonflies (Libellula luctuosa) at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetlands Refuge.

In one case, I tried to isolate the dragonfly by shooting at an upwards angle, thereby eliminating the clutter of the vegetation. Of course, it helped that the dragonfly cooperated by perching at the tip of the stem. I really like the way that the colors and shapes of the background almost match those of the dragonfly.

Widow Skimmer

In a second case, the dragonfly was perched in the midst of the vegetation. I moved to a position so that my camera’s sensor was on a parallel plane to the dragonfly’s open wings and opened the aperture pretty wide. Normally I try to keep the aperture stopped down in an effort to get more parts of the dragonfly in focus. This time, however, the dragonfly was relatively flat and I was able to throw the background a bit out of focus without losing the details of the dragonfly. The contrast of the background colors with those of the dragonfly helps it to stand out, while retaining a sense of the environmental setting.

Widow Skimmer

There are lots of other ways to isolate subjects. Sometimes we have the luxury of being able to think about them, but often we are forced to make rapid decisions about shooting angles and camera settings that will have a huge impact on our final images.

 

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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What is a Widow Skimmer? It sounds like a con artist who preys on rich older women, but it actually is a beautifully patterned dragonfly, like this juvenile male that I spotted recently at Huntley Meadows Park.
Why is it called a “widow?” According to bugguide.net, the species name of the Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) “means sorrowful or mournful, perhaps because the wings of both male and female seem to be draped in mourning crepe.” Only the male has white patches on its wings, so it’spretty easy to identify the dragonfly in the image as a male. Adult males have blue bodies and juvenile males and females have yellow and brown bodies.
Sometimes I wish that the identification of dragonfly species were this easy all of the time, but real life is generally much more complicated.
Widow Skimmer
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love the dramatic lighting, the graphic quality, and the simple composition of this shot of a male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) that I took earlier this month at Jackson Miles Abbot Wetlands at Fort Belvoir, a nearby military installation here in Virginia.

There is a real beauty in simplicity.

Widow Skimmer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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It violates one of the basic rules of photography to have your subject in the center of an image, but for both of these shots of a male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa), that’s precisely what I did.

In the first image, the blade of grass that bisects the image helps to emphasize the symmetric patterns on the wings of the Widow Skimmer.

Widow Skimmer

In the second image, I was so fascinated by the geometric lines of the grass and their varying degrees of sharpness that I did not want to crop them at all, so I left the Widow Skimmer more or less in the center.

Widow Skimmer

When it comes to my photography, I tend to look at “rules” as general guidelines that apply in many—but not all—situations. That approach helps me to remain centered and flexible.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Flying slowly and weakly with its patterned wings, a male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) looks amazingly like a butterfly as it flutters by. Fortunately this one stopped to perch on some vegetation at the edge of a small stream and I was able to get this shot.

Widow Skimmer

This was the second time that I have seen a male Widow Skimmer this spring. It’s easy to tell that this is a male, because the females do not have the white spots on their wings. When I saw one last month, though, it was a little tougher to make the call. Immature male Widow Skimmers look a lot like females, as is the case with many dragonfly species. The colors of “fresh” dragonflies tends to be pale and wing patterns may not have developed fully yet. The photo below provides a pretty clear view of the “claspers” at the tip of the abdomen, which indicates that this is a male. Eventually he will grow up and begin to look more like the mature Widow Skimmer in the first photo.

Widow Skimmer

Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Although I usually try to get close up for my dragonfly photos, I am unusually pleased with this image I took yesterday of an immature male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa), which has an artistic quality that is not always found in my close-ups.

For those who might be curious about the identification, the white on the wings indicates that it is a male (females have only dark blotches) and the yellow and black body indicates that it is immature,because adult males have bluish-colored bodies.

widow1_blog

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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It was exciting for me to spot a new dragonfly this weekend, a male Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa).

I really like the brown and white pattern on the wings, which was distinctive enough that it also helped me in identifying it. According to Bugguide, the species name means sorrowful or mournful, perhaps because the wings of both male and female seem to be draped in mourning crepe.

The weather has turned hot and humid, which is typical for the Washington D.C. area, which seems to be great for the dragonflies, so I’ll be out as often as I can tolerate the heat, searching for new dragonflies to photograph.

brown_white1_blogbrown_white2_blog

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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