Cool Dragonfly

Let me start off by saying that the small size of these pictures on the blog don't do them justice. To see the true beauty of this dragonfly, click on the pictures to view them larger. Click them with your mouse wheel to open them in new tabs.

This dragonfly was waiting for me on the deer trail after I left the scene from my last post with the deer. I felt at that moment that it must be my lucky day. And it was. This dragonfly zoomed about the area until it finally landed on this twig to give me a golden opportunity for pictures.

The only problem was that the Sun and the clouds weren't always cooperating, but they soon gave me just the right amount of light to get the pictures I wanted of this beautiful creature. And I really mean it, clickety clickety!

As I was going through the dozens of pictures I took of this creature I began to get the strangest feeling that I recognized it. This was not just because it was a dragonfly. I knew I had seen dragonflies before. But this particular type looked very familiar.

Then it struck me! I knew where I had seen it! Sharkbytes recently featured this same type of dragonfly over on her blog. Go over and take a look. Comments are a good thing too. She says the name of her type of dragonfly is the Widow Skimmer, so I'm assuming that's what this one is too.

As I said before, the clouds were interfering with my photography attempts, but I still kept taking my pictures. This all shows that if you take enough pictures, a few of them just might turn out okay.

The light actually helped me because I was able to get pictures with different lighting that came out very differently from each other. I got everything from blur to shadow, but I'll just share some that were closer to the middle
.

The great thing about all of these pictures is that I originally went on this deer trail where I found this dragonfly to keep some distance between me and a group of people who arrived at the park at the same time as I did. They didn't know the secret of the deer trails, but I'll share it with you.

Deer trails, and places like them, are where the magic of nature really exists. As long as you respect them, they will share some of their magic with you.


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

On The Deer Trail

It has been awhile since I've visited my old favorite place, Woodland Hills Nature Park. I love going back there because it's not very far from home, and it is a nice and quiet place to hike. Most people don't like this place because they can't take their animals, and it is more nature than park.

There aren't usually many animals to see at this place unless you know what you're doing. Almost everyone stays on the main paths, which are still kind of rough compared to most normal walking parks. But I look for the out of the way places. I look to explore the trails where no other humans go. I look for the deer trails.

Deer make their own trails that sometimes criss-cross the human trails. I immediately upon arriving on the human trail decided to move to the first deer trail I saw. And around the first bend I encountered exactly what I was looking for. This white-tailed deer was staring back at me as if it couldn't believe I was really there.

I made sure I chose the right body language to keep it there long enough to get several pictures to share with you. But then I had an even better idea. I should get a little bit of video. I haven't had an episode of Rat TV in a very long time.

The problem with the video is that the deer wanted to keep standing there staring at me. So I had to slightly shift the way I appeared to her so that she would decide it wasn't such a good idea to be there anymore. I did it because I knew you would want a little bit of an action video.  Of course I didn't want to scare her too much though. Let's watch the video.


The sounds you hear in the video are the freeway that is not too far from this park. The trees muffle most of that noise, but sometimes, like in a video, it can sound very loud. The animals are used to it by now though. And this park is a good enough size that they can hide from most humans pretty well.

I'm not going to share any blogging tips this time. As I  write this, I'm not sure if anyone cares about them yet. I'll still put them out there when I think of something cool. But nature is cool too. And I just went on this trip that I am extremely excited about. This deer wasn't the only thing I found. See ya!


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!