Happy 4th of July to you all.

You may have noticed that I am going through a dragonfly phase(or more properly, an odonata phase, since I am equally interested in damselflies). Though I had taken a few dragonfly images before, I mark a particular photograph of a Twelve-spotted Skimmer taken at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens almost exactly a year ago as the beginning of the phase.

Yesterday my wife and I took a trip back to the CMBC (it is somewhat of an anniversary tradition), and there were hundreds of Twelve-spotted Skimmers patrolling the ponds and the walks of the gardens. The TsS is a spectacular dragon at any time, but turn a hundred of them loose in a world-class botanical garden on a bright summer day and you do get some pretty interesting photo ops!

The lead two images are the male (I saw only three females the whole day). The following image is the female, and the third is a female in flight, as she deposited eggs in the water of one of the ornamental pools. The blur to her right is a male diving on her. Then a head on shot of a perched female.

Some of the males were showing their age. You can see the nick out of the edge of the wing in the 7th shot and evidently the 8th is the survivor of a bird attack. Still, I could not resist him on the furled iris.

And last but not least, two shots of unusual poses: on a giant rose blossom, and decorating the Hillside 8 sign.

Finally I can’t resist adding this dragonfly…not a Twelve-spotted Skimmer as near as I can tell…but impressive none the less. It has a 6 foot wing-span and is mounted about 10 feet from the ground at the Azalea gardens. The avid dragonfly collector can take it home (well, can have it shipped home) for only $14,000.

Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.  Various combinations of zoom and digital tel-converter for equivalent fields of view from 840mm to 1680mm. f5.8 at ISOs ranging from 100 to 320 and shutter speeds from 1/100th to 1/1000th.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.