Eastern pondhawks (Erythemis simplicicollis) are one of my favorite dragonflies. First of all, they’re quite attractive. The one in this post is a female. The males are a bright powder blue where the female is green. They’re a large dragonfly, and they are pretty bold, so they don’t mind nosy photographers. But I think the thing I like the best about them is that they hang out here on my little farm from early spring through the summer, and into the fall. I usually get mainly females since they tend to roam further from the water than the males, but once in awhile I see a male here, too. This little lady was very actively hunting the day I spotted her. In these photos she looks pretty calm, but actually, her eyes were moving almost constantly while she watched for prey to fly by. Twice while I was watching her she launched in a hurry after something I couldn’t even see. Both times she returned very shortly, so I know it wasn’t me scaring her. On both of those forays I lost track of her, so I don’t know if she was successful or not. It was still interesting to watch, though. She was definitely primed for the hunt.