It’s amazing how quickly things can change at this time of year. For example, I wrote this opening paragraph for a draft post yesterday:

It’s mid-May and I’m impatiently awaiting the arrival of my favorite insects, the dragonflies and damselflies. At this point I’ve still only found common green darners, but the next couple weeks should bring us at least a dozen more species as we kick off this summer’s dragonfly season. Knowing that any day might be “the day,” I keep going out looking for odes. That’s how I happened to stumble, almost literally, onto a really rare photo opportunity the other day.

So I wrote a bit more on that draft post and left it to be finished later. And then I went out today and found three more ode species! Today was, in fact, finally “the day”!! But back to the story of the rare photo opportunity I stumbled upon:

Darners are large, fast-flying dragonflies, and so anytime I find one perched is exciting. I nearly stepped on this one, and was surprised when he didn’t fly away instantly. Often when they’re newly-emerged adults (teneral), they’ll sit still like this as they’re waiting for their wings to harden, but this one didn’t look teneral to me. I always try to approach them from directly behind when possible, because that’s the only place they can’t see me coming (they have a field of view that’s nearly 360 degrees with those big compound eyes). But even so, this one stayed put long enough for me to start shooting pictures from almost directly above.

And then THIS happened! The little pearl crescent butterfly landed on top of the dragon’s wing and sat there for maybe ten seconds. All I could think was that it’s always best to be behind the dragonfly’s mouth if you’re a butterfly.

I held my breath and kept shooting, and even took five seconds of video before the butterfly flew away. I figured somebody might not believe this really happened, so I wanted proof that I didn’t Photoshop it!

My gosh, that was so exciting, I still smile about it when I think of how I felt in the moment!

Then today I was back at this same location and was treated to another lovely view of this very common butterfly. These pearl crescents are so ubiquitous that I usually stop taking pictures of them rather early in the season as I have so many already. But this one landed briefly in a field of little bluestem, and I couldn’t resist making another image.

Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is such a great native grass, and this particular Nature Conservancy parcel is loaded with it. Little bluestem’s big brother is, not surprisingly, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii). While both are gorgeous prairie grasses, I’m partial to the little one that only gets about four feet tall. I find it particularly gorgeous in late fall and through the winter, when the dry stalks are a warm brown that glows in the sunlight. I’ve tried many times to photograph it, but have never been satisfied with what the camera captures.

Here’s a short video clip I made in March, as the grasses were swaying in the wind. There wasn’t much sun shining on this day, but it’s still very pretty.

I hope you enjoyed meeting some of the plants and animals from one of my favorite places. Most people who drive past this former-agricultural-field-now-restoration-project would think it’s just a “weedy field,” and not give it a second thought. But I love traipsing around out there, because you just never know what’s next to discover as the long-dormant native plants begin to stir from the seed bank, and new animals come to make their homes among them.