The 21st Century Matriarch

The day lily garden at the Springfield Botanical Garden offered many colors and sizes of day lilies…many with water droplets from the early morning rain. I enjoyed photographing them…trying different types of compositions.

There was a butterfly on some zinnias planted in a bed neat the lilies. This has not been a good year for butterflies in Springfield or at my home in Maryland.

A dragonfly perched on a dried stalk…kept coming back to the same one. I was thrilled to get a zoomed picture. It looks a like a female Widow Skimmer….but not a perfect match - the dark patches on the tips of the wings does not fit although this is the underside of the wing and the pictures I was using for ID all are from the other side.

It was getting hotter, and we closed the loop back to the car. There was a line of cars coming into the garden as we were driving out. Our visit was well timed!

As we headed down the trail by the stone wall, we started noticing dragonflies! My husband had been talking about a trek to Kenilworth to photograph dragonflies on lotuses – was pleased to find so many of them at Mt Pleasant. I knew when we sampled the stream, that dragonfly larvae were generally found…so seeing the adults was validation that their life cycle is continuing.

I photographed 4 different kinds in about 15 minutes! When I got home – I identified each one from my photographs.

The Common Whitetail Skimmer was the first that I photographed. When I was identifying, I realized I had photographed males and a female!

An Eastern Pondhawk was almost hidden in the vegetation.

The Ebony Jewelwings were very active making them more challenging to photograph. Their iridescence never seems as glorious on the captured images as it does when they move about.