If this is the sort of animated .GIF file that you can watch for minutes on end…I’m right there with you. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a video camera, but I can often make due with a series of rapid-fire photos. At another spot on the trail, I saw a grasshopper pounce on something. I swung my camera around to focus, hoping to see the drama of the food chain playing out…

Oops. I was right about the pouncing, wrong about the intentions. If I had thought about it for half a second, I would have realized that there wouldn’t be much drama involved with a grasshopper having a meal, since grasshoppers are herbivores. Still fascinating though.

I’ll share a couple more pics-

I have never noticed this species of dragonfly before – or if I have, it must look different now. I know that dragonflies are in the taxonomic order Odonata, but beyond that, I can’t say.  Neat colors though, and different from the powder-blue, bright red, and blue-green dragonflies I can recall seeing.

These damselflies present a much more delicate – almost artful form of procreation.

Probably the coolest thing I saw last weekend was a dragonfly catching another flying insect in mid-air. Whether or not the unfortunate insect knew it was about to become dragonfly food, I’ll never know.

I continue to be a humble student of Nature.