Rain, sleet, snow, storms, cats & dogs, and dragonflies?

Okay, it wasn’t raining cats and dogs, and it wasn’t a rainstorm, it was a dust storm of all things!  A tornado threatened, but only very fierce winds prevailed. I’m not sure of the difference between sleet and hail, but it was very hard, tiny but loud raindrops that melted right away! These were over the span of a few days, designed of course to make one really truly appreciate days of spring, which has sprung early. Birds are madly chirping, and dragonflies abound. 

   I’d like to say a word about these wonderful helpful creatures. 

Apparently, your common dragonflies are quite ancient, descended from dinosaurs ; 

   A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known.

 Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threatens dragonfly populations around the world. Adult dragonflies are characterised by a pair of large, multifaceted, compound eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. 

Many dragonflies have brilliant iridescent or metallic colours produced by structural coloration, making them conspicuous in flight. 

An adult dragonfly's compound eyes have nearly 24,000 ommatidia each. 

   Ignore the ‘insect’ part :-p  , dragonflies are beautiful and awesome because they feast on those nasty mosquitos. Btw, baby dragonflies almost exactly resemble big mosquitos, pls make sure to squish the wrong ones, mosquitos, not the right ones, dragonflies! 

   Also, for some reason, they always try to get into front doors or open windows, pls gently guide them back outside, they don’t bite, and sort of tickle! After about mid-spring, they mature enuf to tell they are dragonflies.  

   Another fun fact, mosquitoes tend to hang out on the ground in damp or wet grasses, looking for baby feet to bite! Gosh, I can’t stand mosquitos, anyway, one way to tell that mosquitos are hiding in grasses is that u can see iridescent dragonflies gracefully sweeping across the grasses just inches above the lawn. I would say to let them do their job, it may save spending on pesticides. 

   There are small sound machines that mimic the dragonfly drone, and garden reflecting balls with colorful dragonfly attachments may assist…

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