These colorful creatures of the air are seen from spring well into the fall, but it's now that their numbers and different species reach a peak. Twelve-spotted skimmers, common whitetail skimmers and green darners are some of the easy-to-identify dragonflies on the wing at this time.
An expert hunter, the dragonfly has a streamlined body and glistening wings that carry it through the air at speeds of 30 miles per hour or more. Each pair of wings strokes alternately, the front pair going up while the hind pair is going down, at a rate of 30 or 40 strokes per second. Like hummingbirds, dragonflies can hover in the air or suddenly dart upward, downward or to one side. While sunning and resting, they extend both wings as if in flight.
Dragonflies are dangerous only to smaller insects, which they can catch and eat on the wing. Sometimes a dragonfly catches so many mosquitoes that there will be a hundred or more in its mouth at one time. Another common name for the dragonfly is the mosquito hawk. A dragonfly is capable of eating its own weight in food in half an hour.
JIM GILBERT
