Comparison

Both of these dragonflies are widow skimmers. The lower one on the left is an immature male. The other one with the blue abdomen is a mature male.

It was considerate of them to pose for me like this … apparently, they wanted in a blog.

A Dragonfly Surprise

I took a few minutes to walk around the backyard, looking for any new visitors.

The male widow skimmer dragonflies have been hanging around in my two small gardens. I didn’t see this other visitor until I got the pictures in the computer. There’s a tiny red mite on the dragonfly’s side. Two other skimmers also had a mite on them.

  The males have the yellow stripe on their abdomen like the females do. The female widow skimmers lack the white patch on their forewings, and the male’s abdomen will turn a powder blue.