Harbinger of Summer

Calico Pennant Emerging

Summer is here.  No June 20th didn't arrive early, by to me when the beautiful calico pennant dragon emerges, summer is here.    These beautiful dragons are a personal favorite.   When they first emerge, they can emerge in mass.  That has been the case over the last several days.   Starting last Sunday, and continuing through the week, each evening, nymphs climb out of there watery homes onto blades of grass, dead twigs, or in the above picture an old sori from a sensitive fern from last year.

It is really special to get to the lake shore where I know these emerge and see literally dragon upon dragon on the grasses near the lake shore.    The picture above shows the warming up dragon along with its exuvia.  The exuvia is the outer 'skin' the nymph had while it was an aquatic insect.

To showcase the beauty of the dragon, I took the liberty of having the dragon perch on some very un-natural plants - like a dames rocket.

It would be highly unusual to find a dragon on such a perch as it was emerging.   The plant doesn't grown in the water and the nymph would never crawl up a blossom such as this.   But even with it being a more forced setting, it sure is pretty to see a beautiful dragon on the blossom.

Common Baskettail on Sensitive Fern

Another dragon that emerges at the same time as the calico pennant is the common baskettail.   Here you see the new dragon fly, along with its exuvia on the underside of a sensitive fern.   Being a large dragon fly, you can find some very interesting perches that these dragons find suitable for transforming from an aquatic creature into the flying jewels we know so well.

I'll continue to hunt for dragons during the summer, but there isn't the excitement later in the summer compared to the first big week of dragon fly emergence.