Nature Through My Eyes

There are so many amazing things in nature that we seldom really pay attention to and I’ve decided to highlight one each Tuesday.  Please let me know if you enjoy this kind of post! 
While going through my photographs today, I stopped at my folder of dragonflies and damselflies.  They fascinate me with their fast wings that are so sheer.  There are so many kinds and so many colors.  And even though the general shape is the same, there are many differences. 
Dragonflies have multi-faceted eyes and two sets of wings with an elongated body.  They hold their wings away from and perpendicular to their bodies when they are resting.
Damselflies (doesn’t that remind you of fairy tales?) hold their wings close to their bodies when at rest and they are generally smaller than dragonflies.  Another difference is in the eyes.  The damselfly eyes are set apart and the dragonfly eyes touch.  Who would have thought you had to look that closely to see the difference?

Gray Sanddragon



Blue-eyed Darner

When I reviewed the history of the dragonfly, I was surprised by the diversity that various cultures attached to this insect.  Many European cultures thought they were instruments of the devil – weighing people’s soul (Swedish), a Devil’s Darning Needle (English), and Eye Snatcher (Portuguese).  For the Navajo the dragonfly symbolizes pure water.  For the Japanese they represent courage, strength and happiness.  And if you are a dragonfly and damselfly watcher, you are ‘oding’ – similar to birding!
I’ve taken pictures of these beautiful creatures everywhere I have visited and I thought you might enjoy seeing them.  And there are so many more for me to see and photograph!
Widow Skimmer


Blue Dasher




Flame Skimmer

Roseate Skimmer




Mexican Amberwing



Labels:

Comments

  1. John Wakefield/Artistry in GlassSeptember 15, 2011 at 9:41 PM

    Great pictures Linda - did you use a telephoto lens? My lasting impression of dragonflies is their restlessness, apparently never happy to hover for more than a moment before whizzing off at high speed to find another transient hovering spot. They remind me of my own peripatetic personality - one moment delving into a la recherche du temps perdu while simultaneously finishing off my latest website: http://tucsonterrariums.com, trying to figure out the guitar chords for "This old heart of mine (keeps breakin' all the time)", delivering a massive conference table to Willcox and, of course, redecorating our showroom using the sensational color palette masterminded by you. I'm determined to become more focused and less dragonflied.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I began to really understand the technique of viking knit.  Loo
Read more

Spring Do-Over Challenge

Image
Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pair of earrings.  One pair could be part of
Read more

The Draw of the Mojave Desert or Why I Started Designing Jewelry

Image
When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He
Read more