Pasture Perches Round 2

I previously wrote about leaving some perches in my pasture for bluebirds to hunt from. Today I learned that dragonflies also use perches, albeit shorter ones, to hunt from as well.

This morning I was out doing some work in my pasture when I spied, what I affectionately call, a pink lemonade dragonfly far from a water source. It was perching on about a foot high piece of stubble left after we recently mowed the pasture. I watched the dragonfly for a bit and it looked like it was contentedly hanging out so I took off for the house to grab my camera. Happily it was still there when I got back. Occasionally it would fly off but returned fairly quickly to the same perch. One time when the dragonfly flew off, it was replaced immediately by a grasshopper like there was a game of king of the hill in progress. The grasshopper decided not to hang out so quickly though that I only got one shot of it.

While I took my first series of images of the dragonfly, from essentially a rear, side view, I noticed it was chewing and grooming every now and then. I have observed the grooming behavior before but don't remember noticing chewing. After taking several images I went back to work. Once I finished what I was working on, I approached the perch from the other direction and decided to take more pictures from the side and a somewhat front view.

I was surprised by what happened next. After one trip flying off the perch and landing again I was able to capture the dragonfly chowing down on a small flying insect. That explained the chewing motions I noticed previously. I got lucky enough to capture it eating a different small flying insect too. The second insect was a tad larger and I suspect a bit tougher as it took the dragonfly longer to finish its second catch.

I take a lot of pictures of dragonflies and sometimes I wonder if I really need any more dragonfly images. However I really enjoy the challenge of trying to capture a great image and today I was reminded that you never know what surprises you will see when observing nature, so dragonflies are still on my list of subjects to be photographed.