My Ft. Bragg Insect Neighbors

 Even when I was very young I had a fascination with creatures and insects were part of the fascinating ones. I got into the rhythm when I lived in Caspar, just south of Ft. Bragg for 17 years, out on the edge of the pygmy forest, of taking pictures of my neighboring creatures, many of whom were insects. There were several species of dragonflies that I saw from time to time in my yard there and captured images of. I never saw one of these red ones there though I had seen one at a small pond at a friends house in Ft. Bragg a few years ago. I see these at my Ft. Bragg house every couple of days. I know there at least two because I've seen two at once.

Dragonflies are often difficult to capture images of because they are kind of shy and fly away when you try to get close. That happened with these guys at first but an odd thing happened after a few days of trying to get close. I was able to get very close, having the camera within a few inches and once actually touching ones body gently. It flew away then but in a few seconds came back to the same spot where I was still waiting. I have no idea what this is about. I hum to them and wish them well but don't have a clue as to why they now seem more unafraid.

I like looking at the details of their wing structures, the engineering is kind of interesting to me.  They are just about the best and fastest insect flyers and do amazing maneuvers in the air. I think one reason they are attracted to my yard is the abundance of other insects since they are predator creatures.

 I've seen a couple of other species of dragonflies in the yard, a small blue and black one and a larger one only seen from a distance that seemed to be black and white with maybe a touch of blue or green, kind of iridescent. Hope to be able to get pictures of them sometime this summer.

I've seen guys like this one to the right in Caspar and Mendocino, not a bee, some kind of a fly like creature but bee sized, I often see them as well as honey bees and native bumble bees on adjacent flowers of some of the plants in my yard.

This honey bee was on my back deck on a basil plant and I think maybe it was at the end of it's life span, sitting still or moving really slowly. But maybe it was just taking a little time out from it's busy schedule, they work really hard. I'm happy that I'm seeing more honey bees this year than I have for the last several.

Borage plants have self seeded all around our new yard and I'm happy about that as the bees really like their flowers, I've see as many as 15 or 20 bees at once on a sunny afternoon, mostly small black native bees but some honey bees.

You can tell this one has been working a lot because of the pollen on it's  legs.

This one also was being very still, resting or possibly at the end of it's lifespan. These guys usually move really fast and only spend a few seconds at each flower they visit so it's often difficult to get pictures. I sometimes put my camera in burst mode and just push the shutter in and let it take picture after picture fast, hoping I'll get useable images. Sometimes I'm lucky. I'll keep trying to get images of my neighbors and post some more in the future.