Gratuitous Green: Dragonfly

Here's some more gratuitous green for your February day:

A summer visitor who kindly paused and posed. This is a Four-Spotted Skimmer, found in western Canada, Alaska, and the northern 48 of the United States.

This picture gives a better idea of why it's called a Four-spotted skimmer:

See those dark spots on the wings?  Beautiful!  

The ground beneath our feet is heavy clay so any low spot collects water.  Which means we have a few mosquitoes in June.  And by few, I mean many.  I'm happy to slap and swat my way through early summer if the mosquitoes draw these beauties in.



Thanks to Princeton Field Guides for their great book, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West for help with the I.D.  We have wanted a dragonfly field guide for a long time and this one does the trick.