Common Green Darner

If you've been following this blog lately, it would be impossible to miss the fact that I've become a lot more interested in dragonflies this past year. (To really drive the point home, click on the "Dragonflies" label at the bottom of this post.) And of course with that interest, it naturally follows that I'm interested in photographing them as well. I've really enjoyed playing with different techniques for snapping the pics, as well as exercising patience to try to get really close up.
Today I received a wide-angle lens attachment for my Sony DSC-H50 camera, with the intent of using it to try and get more depth of field for macro close-ups., so I took a bit of time on my lunch break to step outside for a few minutes and test it out. After wandering about for a bit, I heard what sounded like a dragonfly's wings beating as well as a "crunching" sound. Well, the wings were a dragonfly's, beating against the grass - and the crunching sound was him eating. I've been lucky enough to watch a few dragonflies eating, but this really was something else. The diner was a Common Green Darner - one of the larger dragonflies in our area, and the meal was what I think had been a Variable Darner. By the time I arrived on the scene, the head was gone and he was working on the body. Oh - the really weird thing was that the Green Darner was on it back and eating when I first found them!



He stayed and ate for a while allowing me to play with the new lens, and finally took off leaving a very pretty headless darner behind him.