More Dragonfly Magic

My iridescent-winged "Halloween Pennants" are back, right where I knew I'd find them.  Every summer, these intricate dragonflies (Celithemis eponina) welcome me into their circle for an afternoon.  They always allow me to get astonishingly close.  I was surprised there were so many so early.  For the two years previous, I took their portraits in August.  Yesterday they seemed skittish at first; they kept zipping away.  But then we all relaxed into it ... and it was magic.

This Evening's Enchantment

Magnificent evening walk at the reservation. I wondered if the particular dragonflies I love would be out, and there they were ... magic. It was like an enchantment observing them in all their glittering glory. As before, they invited my camera in, right up close. It was breezy, but they cling like little pennants to the plants. In fact, that's what they are named: Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina.

How invisibly
it changes color
in this world,
the flower
of the human heart.

-- Komachi

Travel by Dragonfly

Late this warm August afternoon, dragonflies quivered in the breeze, clinging like iridescent pennants to tall stems. I actually thought the word pennants as I crouched at the edge of the field, watching them. If I was still enough, they let me get very close. Later this evening, I discovered that they really are called Halloween Pennants (Celithemis eponina).

Do you remember those trippy Jimi Hendrix lyrics from "Spanish Castle Magic?"

It's very far away
It takes about half a day
To get there, if we travel by my -- uh -- dragonfly ...

Whenever I hear that song, those lines make me laugh. A little bit of musical magic, a little bit of hallucinatory flight. Travel by dragonfly -- I guess that's what I was trying to do, getting so close I could see the patterns of veins on their diaphonous wings, looking deep into those gigantic mirrored eyes, imagining how the world looks reassembled into a mosaic. Maybe Jimi Hendrix had compound eyes.

Click on image to enlarge. Photo taken late this afternoon at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.