Damselflies, preparing for lift-off, Discovery Park

It may not feel like summer just yet, but over in the North Beach pond, every log and piece of wood was lined with skinny insect bodies sporting electric blue highlights. Swift forktail damselflies.

Lots of them.

Last year, I photographed an earlier generation on June 1.

Merganser Pond, Saltspring Island

On the other side of Ruckle Provincial Park, the campgrounds are jammed, and people line the sandstone shoreline watching the ferries go by. But here in the woods: nobody. My father and I broke cobwebs across the trail as we walked up at 11 a.m.

Nestled among the cedars, a pond, abuzz with dragonflies: eight-spotted skimmers, blue-eyed darners (at least I'm pretty sure they were blue-eyed darners. I never saw one stop.)

Also meadowhawks mating...

They were leaving their eggs among the duckweed, which doesn't strike me as a very permanent spot. They must overwinter as larvae.


...lyre-tipped spreadwings...


...and duets of bluets.


And once we'd stayed still and looked long, we found we were surrounded by dozens of Pacific tree frogs, most of them small enough to perch on a fingernail.
Perched among the duckweed, they were hard to spot.


Here's a closer view.


Many of them perched on blades of sedge.


Here are a couple more tiny froggy pictures.

How dragonflies see

Living the Scientist has an amazing article on vision among dragonflies and damselflies.


Blue dasher, photographed at Green Lake.

Damselfly eats while mating

Damselfly mating is a wonder of flexiblity and coordination. The male uses a special pair of arms on the end of his abdomen to grab the female behind the head, and she bends to touch her abdomen to the sperm stored in his thorax. They can do this while flying around.
Heck, they don't even have to drop what they were eating, or at least this female doesn't. She's holding something to her mouth-parts and munching away.

Photographed in Discovery Park.

Dragons and damsels, Green Lake

I came by Green Lake about 4 p.m. on a warm, sunny afternoon, and found myself quickly distracted by dragonflies.
Pachydiplax longipennis (Blue Dasher)

Libellula forensis (Eight-spotted Skimmer). This was the hardest to photograph. They seldom stopped, and when they did, they chose perches close by the water. They were amazingly active, jousting with each other in the air and swooping down to touch the water.

Ischnura erratica (Swift Forktail), which like all damselflies has a very athletic way of mating. The male grabs the female behind the head using special claspers. They fly around. Then the female bends her abdomen forward to get his sperm, which he is storing in a special compartment in his thorax.

More sights at Discovery Park

Salmonberries are ripe.


Pileated woodpecker.


Swift forktail damselfly

Damselfly derring-do

Wanderin' Weeta has a look at the anatomy and life history of the Pacific forktail damselfly, now emerging from ponds around the region.