On my way to work on Friday morning I came across a medium sized water turtle in the center of the road that comes out of the area where I live. The road is not super busy, but in the mornings and the afternoons when people are coming and going from work and school there is enough traffic to make it dangerous for a turtle. Plus, there is no water around! I have no idea where the turtle came from or where it was going, but it definitely didn’t belong in the sandhills! I stop for turtles and tortoises whenever I find them in the road, but I usually just get them across in the direction they were headed and let them continue on, but in this case I couldn’t do that, so I picked it up and took it with me to work (we are an animal shelter, right?). This isn’t the first time I’ve brought something in with me, so my co-workers are kind of used to it. At the end of the day, I took the turtle out to a nearby retention pond and turned it loose. I wanted to get a video of it moving on to it’s new home, but it just sat there. I know I should have been more patient, but I got distracted by this tiny little dragonfly that flew in and landed on a grass blade near my feet. I focused my attention on it and started taking some photos and when it moved off a bit, I followed. When I went back to the turtle, it was gone! I could see it moving through the grass towards the pond, but I had missed my video opportunity! Oops!

The area around the pond was very pretty, and there were quite a few plants, flowers, and insects to photograph, so I went to work. Along with plenty of stuff for future posts, I also ran into several more of the small dragonflies, which I was able to identify as little blue dragonlets (Erythemis miniscula). These little dragonflies are one of the smallest ones in Florida and in the United States. They tend to be only about an inch long and are relatively shy. They tend to fly and perch low to the ground to avoid predators, including larger dragonflies. They are usually found in areas with plenty of sun and shallow water with few or no fish. They frequent ponds, wetlands, marshes, slow rivers or creeks and even roadside ditches and shallow canals. They lay their eggs in the shallow waters where they are protected by surrounding vegetation. They feed on smaller flying insects such as flies, midges, and mosquitos. The dragonfly larvae will eat mosquito larvae as well as other miniscule aquatic life.

Little blue dragonlets are mainly found in the southeastern United States, but some summers they can be found as far north as New York and Pennsylvania. They are sexually dimorphic with the males being a beautiful powder blue while the females and immature males sport a yellow and black color pattern. All of the individuals that I saw on Friday had the yellow and black colors, and I suspect that it may be a bit early in the season yet for mature males (or females for that matter). I will try to go back out to the retention pond later this year and see if I can spot some mature males then. These little dragonflies closely resemble the somewhat larger blue dashers, but instead of having the light colored faces of the dashers, the faces of little blues are dark. The mature males can also resemble the male Eastern pondhawks, but the pondhawks are considerably larger and much more aggressive.

All in all, I spent almost two hours wandering around the retention pond taking photos (I would probably stayed longer, but I ran out of battery). By the time I left, I felt pretty sure that I had captured some interesting stuff and I was feeling very relaxed and happy. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised to find that my new router had arrived a full week before I was told to expect it! That just topped off a perfect afternoon of photographing and enjoying nature. You can’t ask too much more out of life in my book!