Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: skimmer

I had fun taking pictures of the critters at our seasonal pond! This is what we call a "water skeeter", but I found out there are many other names for this insect, which is a true "bug"! :) From Wikipedia: Gerridae is a family of true bugs in the order Hemiptera, commonly known as water striders, water bugs, magic bugs, pond skaters, skaters, skimmers, water scooters, water skaters, water skeeters, water skimmers, water skippers, water spiders, or Jesus bugs. One main characteristic that sets gerrids and other true bugs apart from other insects is that the front wing is only half functional. Rather than using it for flight, it acts as a membranous covering and the thickened part is by where claws develop. Consistent with the classification of Gerridae as true bugs, gerrids have a mouthpart evolved for piercing and sucking, gerrids distinguish themselves by having the unique ability to walk on water. Gerridae, or water striders, are anatomically built to transfer their weight to be able to run on top of the water's surface. As a result, one could likely find water striders present in any pond, river, or lake. Scientists have identified over 1,700 species of gerrids, 10% of them being marine.

Be still my beating heart, I FINALLY got a good picture of a dragonfly with my Mark II!! HOORAY!!! I absolutely LOVE these insects, but they are next to impossible to photograph in my experience. My biggest problem is not being where they are normally found--near water. But this past spring I went down to our seasonal pond to see if I might get lucky. And what do you know?! This dragonfly was actively hunting and would make a lap or two around the small pond and then land in the same spot. I'd read about that, so when he took off the first time, I quietly moved closer to the branch, and when he landed again, I was much closer and got a bunch of nice pictures! I'm so excited! I have so many Flickr friends who have countless pictures of these beauties (you know who you are!!!) and I always fall on the floor when I see yet ANOTHER magnificent shot. I'm so happy that I finally got some good pictures of this one (more pictures in the future!). It was also fun figuring out which dragonfly this was! I also learned something--in the UK, these meadowhawk dragonflies are called "darters"! It all makes sense now since I've seen them called darters by many but never knew them by that name before. There are more than 50 species of meadowhawks, also known as skimmer dragonflies, and they are found around the world in the temperate zone, except for Australia. They are considered to be small to medium sized and are often bright red or orange as adults, and gold/yellow as juveniles. Dragonflies are predators and catch their prey in the air and then land to eat. They are also eaten by birds, lizards, frogs, spiders, fish and sometimes other dragonflies! If you would like to know more about this lovely dragonflies, Wiki has source here: Wiki: Meadowhawks (Sympetrum) . I found another page with lots of pictures and information here: Cardinal Meadowhawk and here's another nice page: Seeing Red Cardinal Meadowhawks

This image is a cropped version of the next picture, where you'll find more information about this lovely Meadowhawk! :)