DRAGONFLIES UP CLOSE

To view these movies you'll need QuickTime 7.  If you don't have it already, you can download it here -- Free!

(This video will start playing automatically after a brief download.)

Questions or problems with this download, click HERE.

There have been tons of dragonflies in our yard this year.  Maybe that means there have been lots of insects for them to eat, or maybe they've been helped by the abundant rain we've had -- dragonfly nymphs are aquatic.  I've been shooting some close-up video of the dragonflies I find perching in our yard, and when I slowed some of the footage down I found that they make some unusual faces.  Sometimes it looks like they're smiling, and at the end of the video it looks like the eyes change colors.  Each of these "moves" only lasted about 1/4 of a second -- too quick to see with the naked eye.  We're always glad to have dragonflies around because they're great predators of mosquitos.