Dragonfly party

The other day, we noticed there were fewer mosquitos out than there normally are in the early evening.

Then we turned around and noticed there were HUNDREDS of dragonflies swarming the whole garden, from the ground all the way up 30+ feet in the air.
Made for a nice, bite-free evening.

Unfortunately, they were gone relatively soon after. My questions: Has this happened to you? Why would this occur just once? How can I make it happen again? (Every day ideally, lol!)

I live on a quarter-acre mostly-wooded urban lot--and there are always about 7 dragonflies around the front walk area (where I have some potted plants) at any given time, and which sometimes even land on my (delighted!) daughter's finger, hanging out there for a few seconds.

We have tons of mosquitos around here, and no doubt would have more if not for those beautiful dragonflies!

I see this sometimes here in Chicago too. Often they are all sort of hovering facing one direction. I don't know the reason, but I like to see them.

In my area we have what I call 'The Plagues' from mid spring well into the summer. Often for a week or two at a time the skies are thick with things like June bugs or these scarlet red dragonflies. I have been stuck mostly indoors this year with an injury, so when I saw a few of those dragonflies at my friends house last week I asked if the dragonfly plague was starting or ending. He too has had some life changes and been mostly inside recently, so he didn't know.

A long time ago I learned how to put the plagues to work for me. I noticed some bushy vines on a section of fence that some flying insects would be attracted to, and the local anole lizards would eat them. They poop, breed, die, and fertilize the area while the new generation takes off. One little anole might not be much, but I created a lizard utopia of wild vines and sweet potato vines going up fences and every time I walked outside the ground looked like it was alive with all the lizards scattering everywhere. Between fences being torn down and not being able to walk I wasn't able to keep it up this year, but there's always next year.

I've started to see more dragonflies the last year or two. I never saw them previously at all. I think that part of this is that we now have continuous tree cover down to the river, so lots of shelter for the dragonflies and their prey. It's possible that the trees are providing food for the bugs too - I certainly see sawfly larvae and other caterpillars at various times of the year.

Sawfly larvae on alder leaf

However I don't think I see as many bats as I used to. Whether the bats used to eat the dragonflies or not I don't know, but you would have thought they would like the extra shelter and food too.

We live in Florida and have an acre pond. Every summer we have lots of dragonflies. I look forward to seeing them swarm looking for bugs to eat. We have red ones, blue ones, green ones and one type that has black squares on its wings. It looks like an old WWI fighter plane

I love dragonflies - and not just because they make a meal of midges!

They are difficult to photograph though! I like this one:



And this shot is special too:

both from notes fromtheroad travel 'blog

Nancy Reading, what a beautiful photo of the yellow dragonfly!

THe ones I see here (south-western Oregon) I would characterize as mostly the "darning needle" type, at least that was what my Mom called them when we saw them skimming the air near our cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks. Here I seem to remember seeing them as mostly black or dark blue.

Nancy Reading wrote:I love dragonflies - and not just because they make a meal of midges!

They are difficult to photograph though! I like this one:



And this shot is special too:

both from notes fromtheroad travel 'blog

These are really gorgeous photos, Nancy: thank you! 😊

Not my photos - I did give the source if you're interested. I have managed to get a few on fenceposts or plants....

dragonfly sunnng itself

Dragonfly in rain

Having small perches gives them a vantage point to hunt. I’ve noticed more in my yard this year since I staked a bunch of veggies instead of using cages. They are on my property since I have a very large pond but I never saw them in the yard until this year. That and a small 30? Gallon pond is the only difference. So I’d say a water source and perches.

I used bamboo but I doubt that matters.