OMG!

[conuly]

We have so many dragonflies!!!!!!

I don't remember seeing any in this neighborhood since we moved in when I was a kid, so I'm so excited.

Comments

[sabotabby]

There are a ton here this year, including in places where you don't normally see dragonflies.

[mount_oregano]

I'm in Chicago, living in a hi-rise, and a couple of evenings ago, swarms were flying past toward the south in their annual migration.

[conuly]

They migrate!? Like geese?

[movingfinger]

Yes, they do! A ship I was on went through a swarm of migrating dragonflies in early October off the coast of the Carolinas I think. It was on the Atlantic flyway---we also went through flocks of migrating warblers, who found the ship covered with dragonflies nearly as big as themselves and worked hard to disassemble and eat them.

[conuly]

Nomnomnom!!!

[mount_oregano]

Yes, some of them, like monarch butterflies, birds, and bats. Maybe all the dragonflies in your neighborhood came from mine.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/09/11/dragonflies-seem-to-be-everywhere-along-chicagos-lakefront-heres-why/

https://news.wttw.com/2024/08/16/swarms-dragonflies-are-move-across-illinois-part-great-and-mysterious-migration

[low_delta]

I love watching them circle the yard

[siderea]

On one hand that's splendid. OTOH, isn't their natural prey things like mosquitoes and flies? It would be unfortunate if what is occasioning this exuberance is a sharp uptick in prey populations.

[conuly]

I don't think so. And anyway, they're at least eating the darn things.

[adafrog]

Cool!

I really like dragon flies until

[disgruntledgirl]

They inevitably smack into Kevin's head. Then I love them because they made me laugh.
I honestly do not know WHY they keep doing that. He really adores them, too.
But he only gets as far as "Oh, cool - a dragonOW!CHRIST!IsItInMyHair?!"

[moonhare]

We had a swarm of them here in July; it made national news even!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/29/us/video/dragonfly-swarm-rhode-island-beach-digvid

Otherwise we do see some of the smaller ones every day :o)

[med_cat]

Take a picture :)

[gwydion]

Oh man i love dragonflies.