Racket-Tailed Emerald

[centuryplant]

Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve is the best place I know of to find Racket-Tailed Emeralds near the Twin Cities. In particular, there is a lovely spot to watch foraging Racket-Taileds in the southeastern part of the park, but the trail to it goes through a low spot between two lakes that like to become one in spring. Luckily the nearby parking lot is also pretty good. On the day I took these pictures, I found 20 or so individuals perching on trees at the edge of the parking lot, but most of them flew away before I could get close. This one ignored me completely; she never moved, even when I got Pamela to bend away a sapling that was making a distracting bright line through the background of this shot. I started to wonder if I was taking pictures of a dead dragonfly. When I was finished and Pamela eased the sapling back into place, a twig brushed a twig on the tree that the emerald was sitting on, and she flew off as if fired from a slingshot.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Ooooooh...

Also, I can't get over the tracery of the wings.

[centuryplant]

I always think there's something really pleasing about the pattern of veins in dragonflies' wings -- even compared to damselflies, whose veins tend to be closer to a simple grid.

[holyoutlaw]

REALLY love the second one -- it's exquisite.

[centuryplant]

Oh, thanks. I wish I could have gotten the extra twigs out of the background of that shot, but that kind of thing never seems to bother anyone else as much as it does me.

[kore]

GORGEOUS, holy wow. Those giant green eyes!

[centuryplant]

They're even more impressive when they're flying around foraging with their huge green eyes catching the sun.