One subject I always enjoy photographing are the many species of dragonfly seen throughout the area. And one challenge, at least for me, is later trying to identify them. It’s quite a learning experience.

I found these dragonflies near the intersection of two paths at a local wildlife refuge on a late June morning. It was actually late morning, almost 10 am, and I was on my way back out of the refuge. But I spotted these beautiful yellow-orange skimmers flying back and forth between perches in a small field on a slight slope. They were far enough from the background I was able to completely blur it out. My focal length was 550 mm, which also helped in blurring the background. I set my aperture to f/8 to try capturing enough of the dragonfly in focus, but you can see the focus was still shallow enough the ends of the wings and “tail” (its segmented abdomen) are out of focus. I do like the look this gives, though.

After poring over many online resources, I believe the subjects of today’s photographs are Needhman’s Skimmer Dragonflies (Libellula needhami), but if you believe differently please leave a comment letting me know what you think they are and how you could tell. The Needham’s are in this area, and the coloration and patterns seem to fit. The other species it resembles is a Golden-winged Skimmer, but I believe there are enough indicators to favor Needham’s.

Some of the indicators include the coloration of the lower legs (tibia), the coloration of the front edge of the wings (the Costa vein), and the patterns and coloration of the front portion of the thorax. Based on the overall coloration of the dragonfly I suspect these were female and/or juveniles.

Below are the resources I used in my attempts at ID’ing the species:

• Prince William Conservation Alliance list of Northern Virginia Dragonflies

• Dragonflies of Northern Virginia has a great PDF about Needham’s Skimmer

• BugGuides’s page on Needham’s Skimmer

• Greg Lasley Nature Photography’s page on Needham’s Skimmer

And finally, I converted one photo to black and white to showcase the interesting patterns of the wings, one of which is partially missing. Seeing something like this always leaves me wondering what might have happened. Did it narrowly escape becoming the meal of something, and if so what? A bird? A reptile? It would have been interesting to see.

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