Blue-eyed Darner

Today, this beautiful dragon fly landed right in front of me, on the garden gate. The picture does not do it justice, as the turquoise and blue colors were vibrant, almost jewel-like. It would have made a perfect brooch!

I had to look it up, of course, and it turns out to be a blue-eyed darner.  Wikipedia tells me that the blue-eyed darner is "a common dragonfly of the western United States commonly sighted in the sagebrush steppe of the Snake River Plain, occurring east to the Midwest from central Canada and the Dakotas south to west Texas and Oklahoma. In Central America it occurs south to Panama". Well, who knew? Common? Not for me, it wasn't - I had never seen it before. 

Continues Wikipedia, saying that "this is usually the second earliest darner to emerge in the spring, with the California darner emerging first. It hunts small flying insects while on the wing". 

While on the wing? What does that mean? Means, "in flight". Learned something new. Again! 

Dragonflies eat "mostly eat other flying insects, particularly midges and mosquitoes. They also will take butterflies, moths and smaller dragonflies. The larvae, which live in water, eat almost any living thing smaller than themselves. Larger dragonfly larvae sometimes eat small fish or fry. Usually they eat blood worms or other aquatic insect larvae" I learned from the DragonFly website. 

Okay, little fellah, you are welcome to the midges and the mosquitoes. But I better not see you nibble on butterflies and bees! 

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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Odonata
Family: Aeshnidae
Genus: Aeshna
Species: A. multicolor