Orange Bluets

[centuryplant]

Most Bluet damselflies are blue and black and hard to tell apart -- in some cases it takes a microscope. Orange Bluets start out with the same color scheme, but turn a beautiful bright orange at maturity. Females sometimes remain blue, but more often become green or yellow; the one in this mating wheel is in mid-transition.

Comments

[centuryplant]

And it only took me 42 shots to get one like that!

Even so, the eye isn't *quite* in focus, because damselflies' heads are so wide (they're like little hammerhead sharks). That's a problem you can only minimize by using a smaller aperture, and in this case I really didn't want all that sand to be sharp, so.

[graydon]

I shall be some time escaping the mental image of tiny hammer-head sharks, tails sculling lazily and wafting by on buzzing wings!

And, yes, outer curve of eyes not perfectly in focus, but I think that just emphasizes how closely the focus line and the axial line of the dragonfly match. (also, 42? as distinct from an order of magnitude larger? Doing really well.)