Dragonfly in the Wind

I'm trying something new. I figured that this blog would be much more interesting with photos, so this is my first attempt at uploading a photo from the garden....

On last Saturday we had a front approaching that had kicked up the wind quite a bit. As I did my normal morning walk-about, I noticed a dragonfly perched on my half-dead yaupon. It seemed to be trying to warm up in the few rays of sun that it could catch and rather obligingly remained still for quite a while as I photographed it.

As I watched, the dragonfly changed from the normal position of flatly outstretched wings to this "tented" wing position, which seemed to help it weather the gusts without getting blown off its branch. There were several strong gusts that caused it to hang on with all 6 legs as it was blown sideways, but for the most part this position kept it quite stable.

It was fascinating to watch the movements of this little guy. At one point a leaf fell to the ground about 8' away, and the dragonfly turned his head up and watched it fall almost all the way to the ground.

As long as my movements were very slow, my proximity didn't seem to bother him at all. Trying to get my camera to focus properly was a real trick, but I managed to get a few shots that weren't too bad.

Let me know what you think!