The magic of Mother Nature!

Imagine that you have only 4 months to live as an adult dragonfly! How would you cope?

I challenged myself to snap dragonflies eating and the first 3 photos show a dragonfly with prey in his mouth!
Don't forget also to have a look at the last picture here in the post!

We are 4 months away from winter here and there is a big scurry in the bushes to stock up for the cold period.
But of course dragonflies don't have to hoard anything, as they simple die before the cold comes.
They spend approximately 7 years under water as a brutal nymph that eats anything and then they transform into adults for mainly two purposes. To eat and more importantly to breed.
Come and enjoy the pictures in our garden!

I could not see what kind of bug he caught as he had been at it for awhile before I got to him!

The bottom part of a dragonflies' jaw can unhinge to suit the size of the prey that they catch!

This guy was playing hide and seek with me every time that he landed, but he didn't know that I could wait him out Lol.

Second landing a bit better!

Third landing on a different leaf of the same bush!

And finally, I got him full on Lol!

We have about seven of these Cape Skimmer dragonflies here and each one has commandeered his own bush!

Soon these will be starting to hunt for females and the mating dances will begin!

A sad part about the mating issue is that these guys will also start to rip each other apart. They are extremely agile and very fast in flight. Some call them the ultimate predators.

While hunting the dragonflies, this tiny wonder appeared to sit between the blades of the cactus plant.

It is one of our smallest butterflies and it is called the "Common Geranium Bronze"!

Our Geranium flowers only started to blossom on Sunday and soon there will be a few of the tiny bronze butterflies around!

"That's all now folks", Squirry said, "I have come to look for him as I want some nuts and you have enough photos above to look at" Lol.

Amazing beauty, finesse and raw power that the dragonflies display. I read somewhere that in the Jurassic period they were huge monsters! They can fly in all directions even in reverse and they can hover.
"They can beat each pair of wings together, or separately and their rear wings can be out of phase with the front wings.
The wing beats is about 50 to 90 beats per second! Top speed is about 30 mph"!
This is why they can so easily catch their prey.
"Now here's the thing; Dragonflies are not flies! Although they have 6 legs, they have 4 wings and flies only have 2 wings.
They are classified as insects because of their six legs that falls into the order "Odonata"
For more information visit; Source

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