Dragonfly (ID Appreciated)

[Judd Patterson]

http://www.juddpatterson.com/BPN/dragonfly1.jpg

Canon 40D, 300mm f/4 IS and 1.4x TC
1/320, f/6.3, ISO 400, handheld
Loxahatchee NWR (Florida)

I really don't know my dragonflies like I should, so I'd sure appreciate any ID thoughts. Is there a good id books for dragonflies/damselflies like there are for birds and butterflies?

[Christina Evans]

Hi Judd. I believe that is a juvenile Blue Dasher, nicely captured here.

The best book I know of is Sidney Dunkle's Dragonflies through Binoculars Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America. It is comprehensive, but the photos are small and sometimes not a great help. He used to have a great book just on Florida dragonflies but it is out of print now. A web site that can be very helpful once you get so you can navigate it a bit is this one: http://public.fotki.com/gstrick3/

I'm a little rusty on my dragonfly ID skills lately, but they can really be a lot of fun. There are some that become easy since they have a very distinctive feature or are very common (Blue Dasher is one of those more common ones, although the color states they go through when young can still confuse). If you pay attention to body shape, tail shape and segments, the face (blue dasher's face is white), the approximate size, behavior (short trips from a perch, often returns to the same one) and habitat (a small dragonfly that looks kind of like this one found in a salt marsh could be a female Seaside Dragonlet), -- those things can help more than colors and markings sometimes. I like to get as many angles as possible if I'm going for an ID, (even if some aren't so photogenic).

Nice photo. Enjoy!

[John Cooper]

Nice looking Dragonfly Judd with great detail shown in the thorax, head and legs. Would the nice BG here tolerate a smaller aperature to bring more of those delicate lace patterns of the wings into sharp focus?
I have just purchased a beaut book on Damsels and Dragonflys but all Aussie species :D

[Ed Vatza]

ID first. That's Bob. :D

Nice image Judd. I too would have like to see you stop down a bit to get more detail in the back half of Bob! The tradeoff is always the background. I like the look of this background as is.

[Bob Reimer]

It looks to me like this is a female. Since you got the angle from a bit below the subject, you can see that there is not secondary genitalia on the second segment which would mean it's not a male. Female dragonflies are often coloured quite differently from males which makes their ID difficult. Depending on the species, the key characters are the face, wing venation, thorax patterns, abdominal shape and patterns with the most important being the sexual characteristics (for the male, the terminal appendages that are used to grasp the female and the secondary genitalia and for the female, the ovipositor). You've got the face and the thorax perfectly and the wings are useful.

Unfortunately, I didn't become really interested in learning dragonflies until I got to UAE where we have only 26 species to learn :) Here, we can count on any dragonfly that colour to be a female (although you do get females coloured like males). There are North American species that have gold coloured males.

Since Sid Dunkle's Florida book is out of print (although available used at exorbitant prices), you might want to try Dragonflies And Damselflies of Georgia And the Southeast (http://www.amazon.com/Dragonflies-Damselflies-Southeast-Wormsloe-Foundation/dp/0820327956/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1) which reviewers say works for all but a few south Florida species.

There are some good resources for North American dragonflies. BugGuide (http://bugguide.net/node/view/77/tree) is a good place to start. Another nice resource is Digital Dragonflies (http://www.dragonflies.org/) and their catalogue (http://www.dragonflies.org/catalog.htm). Based on the fact that the pictures of female Seaside Dragonlets on both these sites show an amber colouration on the wings that isn't present on yours, I'd be inclined not to go with that ID. Actually a female Blue Dasher (http://bugguide.net/node/view/136421/bgimage) looks like a pretty good possibility.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Judd,
usually I'm a more DOF guy...........torn as I really like the BG.............but would also like to see more of the FG wing and body in focus.............As these guys don't sit around forever.........I'll take it as is,
Roman

[Robert O'Toole]

I really like the pose and the details despite the harsh light look great. Overall I love it.The DOF looks great to me, I will choose a balanced BG tone over an F22 dark background 100% of the time. If the guy stays put you can always focus bracket.

The highlights are overpowering for me, they could easily be masked and darkened to balance the image tones.

Flash would have been a great benefit here. It would lightened the body and brought out more details.

Robert

[Gus Cobos]

I don't know that much about Dragonflys Judd,
But I sure like the image...:D

[Ed Cordes]

I like the colors and the detail in the front of the DF. If you had another image at f8 it would be nice to see the comparison. As was mentioned the BG may suffer?

[Trey Barron]

Nice one. I would prefer a little more DOF, but nice as it is. There is a book for all of North America by Sid Dunkle. It is a good start since there is not much for your area alone at the moment. It is available for about $20 at
http://www.amazon.com/Dragonflies-through-Binoculars-America-Butterflies/dp/0195112687/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208398221&sr=8-1

[Greg Lasley]

Hi Judd,

Nice shot...nice background. I have been photographing dragons and damsels for several years and really enjoy them. The others who commented on species ID were correct...the common name of your bug is a female Blue Dasher. I have some shots at:
http://www.greglasley.net/bluedash.html
of this species if you are interested.
There are more and more dragonfly books coming out all the time. Several have mentioned Sid Dunkle's book, but new ones will be out soon by Dennia Paulson and Nick Donnelly which should be good. Odonates are fascinating photo subjects.