24 July, 2010

Dragonfly Swarm!

I was walking through the porch on my way down to my office, when I glanced out the window and saw something I had never seen before. Dragonflies--thousands of them. The air is filled with them right now, for blocks in every direction. They're swarming from just a few inches above our heads to higher than the tallest elm tree on our street. They are probably feeding on much smaller insects, and are in turn getting gobbled up by various birds swooping through, including woodpeckers and grackles. It's a whole circle of life right in my own backyard.

I didn't take a picture, but found one online that looks similar. For full view, go to their Web site: http://fr.treknature.com/gallery/photo134158.htm

6 comments:

Eric Rojas said...

Hi,

This is off topic, but I read a post where you installed drain tile on your home last year.

How have things held up since the work? I just purchased a 1922 bungalow here in Ravenswood that has some surface water issues seeping into the basement. I figure I'll go all the way and do drain tile and a sump pump (house has nothing now). I've had success with a small company Lee Sewer on my condo building work. They installed a flood control for our duplex down units.

If you'd like to refer the contrcators, please do.

erojas@rubloff.com
www.ChicagoRealEstateLocal.blogspot.com

Thanks!

min hus said...

What is it with Dragonflies? I went to a concert outside last night and there were dragonflies *everywhere,* not thousands but at points they seemed to be swarming.

I've never seen that many dragonflies in my life.

Tonia said...

Ditto for Wrigley Field yesterday.

Lady Quilter said...

We have had a LOT OF RAIN which produced lots of mosquitoes. So I'm not surprised at the dragonflies. Never saw anything like it before. Beautiful!

Anonymous said...

I happened across your post while looking for some other dragonfly information and I'm glad I did. Love the photo! I am an entomologist studying this behavior in dragonflies and I was wondering if you might be willing to submit a report of your swarm for me so I can add it to my collection of data. Your swarm seems particularly impressive, so I'd love to include it! If you're up for contributing to my study, you can visit the contact page on my blog (should be linked here) for a list of the information I'm interested in collecting. I'd love to hear from you!

Joanne said...

Absolutely! It's been several weeks since we saw them, and I'm still telling anyone who'll listen.