by Leslie Cox; Monday, July 22, 2013
When one has a garden sometimes we are privileged to witness the most amazing things. One such event occurred in our garden the other day.
I was looking out the kitchen window while washing dishes and noticed movement down at the pond. A leaf of a Pontederia cordata (pickerelweed) plant was madly waving…and not a breath of breeze anywhere. From the distance it was hard to tell what was going on but I dried my hands, grabbed my camera (which is always at the ready these days) and raced out the door. It was just possible this would be my photo op of a pair of dragonflies mating.
Wrong. But it was the next best thing. A mature dragonfly extricating itself from its last nymph stage. And wouldn’t you know it? I arrived on the scene just as he popped out. Too late to snap a photo, or video, of the morphing drama.
Still…it was totally awesome. I love dragonflies. They are avid hunters of flying bugs, like mosquitoes, that fly around in our garden.
This was not a happy occasion however. To my absolute horror, I spotted a hornet attached to the new dragonfly and he was chewing on it! I was so angry, I did not even stop to think…immediately jumping in to action.
Well, I did have enough presence of mind to gently lay my camera down before gently picking up the dragonfly…hornet still attached. The “no thinking” part kicked in as I grasped the hornet by the wing and proceeded to pull him off the dragonfly.
Thought processes were restored at the same moment my thumb and forefinger grasped the hornet’s wing. There was a very real possibility I might get stung but my anger was too focussed on the hornet for being so opportunistic in its intent of making a meal of this newly “hatched” dragonfly, I ignored the threat to myself. After all, unlike my mom and sister, I am not allergic to bee stings.
Someone was watching over me because I did manage to scare the hornet off without being stung myself. But I was really worried about the new dragonfly. All that chewing on its still-soft body must have been really painful.
Carefully setting the dragonfly on a rock at the edge of the pond, I left it alone and went back to my dishes…after snapping a couple of photos of it and its nymph exoskeleton.
About 15 minutes later, I went back outside to check on the dragonfly…just to make sure it was not being bothered by any more hornets or the numerous European paper wasps that have also been hanging around the pond. A little panicked when I did not see it at first, but all was okay upon spotting it on the edge of the rock just above the water line. After a couple more photos for my files, I left it in peace and moved on to see what other garden treasures were awaiting their photo opportunity.
An hour later…time for another check on my rescued dragonfly. It was gone. Nowhere to be found around the pond which meant it had flown the coop. I like to think it is flying around the garden catching those dastardly mosquitoes that seem to prefer my blood over the Duke’s…payment for my rescuing it from the hornet’s mandibles.
