Dragonfly: Blue-eyed Darner

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I took these pics of this brilliant colored member of the dragonfly family, aptly named Blue-eyed Darner, as flew from one end of a small wetland to the other end and then back. Like others of it's kind, it spends a lot of time patrolling it's territory and chasing interlopers away. My experience with this species is the same as noted on MonterayBay.com: "Perched darners are rarely observed. . . ." and "Dragonflies are difficult to photograph in flight." Indeed--just as soon as one starts to hover in one place and I put my camera up to my eye, it darts off. Since they often are flying in and out of shadows, then sun, camera settings have to be reset. And since they are moving, the focus has to be continually focused (I find that automatic focus is worthless with moving dragonflies as well as moving birds). I find that in super close-up views this species has a funny face--the large blue ovals are indeed it's blue eyes and it looks like it has a dark little button nose and like it's smiling. Though these pics lose focus when enlarged by double-clicking on them, the face is seen fairly well by double-clicking the top pic. SeEtta
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