Tiger Dragonfly

[dpastern]

Australian Tiger Dragonfly, taken a few weeks ago. 60D and 300mm F4, with some fill flash.

Dave

[Regulus]

Nice photo Dave, a beautiful Dragonfly, and interesting the way it hooks it's legs around the 'grass?" blade.
Trev

[dpastern]

Thanks Trev. I've seen these a few times, but they're usually very nervous and hard to approach. This one was friendlier though and kept returning to the same perch, allowing me to slowly approach it and get a nice shot. I don't usually use the 300mm f4 for macro, but in this case, it was the right lens, for the right job.

Dragonflies & Damselflies usually hook onto grass/stems like that I've found.

When approaching them, move slow and keep low and no sudden movements.

Dave

[Marios]

Interesting eyes..

[dpastern]

Typical Dragonfly eyes. They have primary (compound) eyes (the larger ones that you can see), and a smaller set of 3 eyes on top of their heads. These are referred to as "ocelli". The smaller set of ocelli are generally used for navigation and telling the Dragonfly that it's flying the right side up AFAIK, but it seems that might not be all that they do - this is an interesting read:

http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/articles/dragonfly

Dave