Last night after work I noticed that the annual ‘hatching of the Dragonflies’ had occurred since the day before. After all the rains of this Spring, we have all seen thousands of ‘no-see-ums’ flying around in hordes and now the mosquitoes are out as well. To those that didn’t know, dragonflies love these little flying creatures.
As I was walking toward the setting sun toward our house, I saw a horde of about 150 small no-see-ums hovering in a squad, with about 12 dragonflies circling their perimeter. One at a time I watched as the dragonflies took turns, swooping in and eating the bugs. They reminded me of WWI Fighter Planes in miniature ‘dog fights’ – right in my back yard! It took only about 5 minutes for all of the flying insects to be gobbled up by the dragonflies. Not even one was left; awesome! I snapped a picture of the dragonflies resting on a trellis between 'Missions', pictured at right.
Dragonflies can travel at up to 60 mph and in that stage of their lives can live up to 2 months. Their main source of food is mosquitoes. So be nice to the dragonflies; they’re the good guys!
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