Saturday morning. Rain spatters on the windowsill. Cars passing outside splash through puddles. Now and again, a rumble of thunder churns through the clouds. These are all good reasons to linger a bit in bed… and so it isn’t until late morning that I head out for my weekly photographic session.

I leave under cloudy skies with the occasional puddle still in the road, but by the time I get to the game area the skies have cleared. The July sun quickly dries the oak savanna, but cool gusty breezes make the day mild and comfortable.

Despite the morning shower, the fields are finally starting to show a bit of summer brown. The sandy soil in Allegan County holds little water and even a week or so without rain is enough to make the green grass fade.

I decided to start on the north west end of the game area, and work my way back to the Old Farmstead.

Twelve Spotted Skimmer

I have been spoiled by the years in which I freelanced. In those days, I never visited the woods on weekends – too great the chance that I’d see a person. Now I only venture in on Saturday, Sunday afternoon, or perhaps some summer holiday. Most of the places I visit are still secluded and quiet. A few, though, are not.

On this afternoon, the sound of gunfire peppers the air in the fields north of the river. There’s lots of hooting and hollering, cheering, and some left over July 4th fireworks – sounds of people having a good time. The dragonfly fields are just on the other side of the stand of trees I talked about last fall – where the pine got so shot up that it fell over. The place *is* a recreation area, so I can’t complain – but the noise was a distraction.

Nonetheless, here there were twelve spotted skimmers, a few blue dashers, and the very last rapidsmidland clubtails of the season. Shortly after stepping into the field I observed a gorgeous northern black widow spider – a large female, ebony and ruby colored - taking down a grasshopper at least four times her size. Sorry – she disappeared before I could level the camera at her.

One new thing on this particular day – the camera I was carrying is the Pentax K7. It arrived Friday, and as soon as I opened the box my old K10D was officially retired. Nothing wrong with that camera – it is a fine one – but I know how it goes when a new tool lands in your hands. IN my case, I have spent zero time reading the manual thus far. I simply snapped the A* 200mm macro lens on the camera, completed with my DIY flash bracket, and kept on shooting like nothing had changed. I did have to adjust flash settings, but aside from that, it was business as usual for shooting dragonflies.

Blue Dasher

Anyhow – I spent the day visiting a few places, dodging bullets and finding dragonflies. I ended up at my favorite new pond. Here I found the trees taking on autumnal colors – leaves turning yellow, orange, and red. The trees that have been submerged in a few feet of water since the pond rose last fall are finally starting to show the stress. A few smaller bushes have flat out died, but now the trees in the 20 to 30 foot tall range are showing signs of stress. What the water level has dropped a bit – a few inches – I doubt they will see much relief. When this place is a marshy grassland in a few years – like it was a few years ago – I fear that dead trees will linger on as monuments to the rapid emergence of this new pond.

And now – the big news of the day. The first red dragon of season made its appearance - a Ruby Meadowhawk. The season turns on the back of the red dragon, and the seeds of autumn are sown.

Ruby Meadowhawk