Roseate Skimmer, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson AZ

Those of you were paying attention might have noticed that yesterday I was suffering under day-of-the-week confusion. My daughter Sarah and I are working the Tucson Birding Festival, and we have been up and out early to do workshops or just to get some birding and photography in while it is still only in the upper 80s, and for some reason I woke up yesterday convinced it was Sunday already. It was only after I had written and posted The Generous Eye post for the week, which is my Sunday morning routine, that I was divested of that illusion. Saturday! Oh well, too late now.

Therefore this is the rare week when I post two The Generous Eye posts. What a blessing! For you. And for me!

This is one of my favorite dragonflies, though I only see it when traveling to Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona…states within its range. We do not have them in New England. The color is just so unlikely in nature…so intense…so pink! I had seen them on, what turns out to have been Friday, while doing a workshop at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, but they would not perch for a photo. On, what turns out to have been Saturday, we found two different specimens perched nicely. One was a tattered individual, with frayed wings, but the other was this relatively new dragon. Even it has a little wing tare…life at Sweetwater, with a host of predatory dragonflies competing within a relatively small area, must be rough.

The Roseate always makes me smile. There is, for me, a deep satisfying joy in seeing one, and especially in photographing one. What an outrageous bug! How extravagant…how unneedfully generous…of the creator to have lovingly intentioned such a creature in our world. I have to admire such extravagance. I have to love such a creator. And sharing an image of the dragonfly that might cause you to experience even a echo of that tangle of feelings is just plain fun! Happy Sunday.