Iridescent eyes, tens of thousands of glittering facets. Shimmering blues and greens. No wonder dragonflies are talismans of summer, one of the few insects we welcome to the season of exposed skin. Graybacks, clubtails, darners, biddies and skimmers. Their names evoke poetry.
Popular names are even more evocative.
Devil's darning needles. When I was a kid, I was told dragonflies stitch up the eyes of sleeping children. They are also supposed to minister to injured snakes, sewing up wounds and nursing them back to health. But it is the flying that makes it possible to sit for hours beside the pond or stream, watching them move. Dragonflies may be the most elegant flyers on the planet.