Sheer Determination

  It was with good intentions that I headed out to the north side of the house this morning.  My idea was to clean the frog pond after letting it sit dormant for the winter.  Keeping a spotless pond in the cool months is rather insensitive to the critters.  They need that leaf mulch in the bottom, the algae floating in the water and the overgrowth of lilies and hyacinths to help them keep warm.  Once it warms, however, I NEED it cleaned.  It was with high hopes that the deed would be done today since I have recently been hearing the frogs and toads starting their calling.  It will not be long before the pond is a nursery for little tadpoles and the cleaning will not get done.  Yep...I had good intentions.

  Just as I started pulling the roots of the hyacinths, a critter caught my eye and that ended the whole shebang.  A dragonfly nymph was making its way up the stem of an elephant ear.  The tiny new growth of the plant was to be the morphing spot for the dragonfly.  Being as I was witness to the beginning of this process, I figured I had better just sit back and be here for the long haul.  In the past, the morphing took about an hour.  Boy!  Was I in for a surprise!  This fellow took two whole hours to change but, in all fairness, the critter obviously had some underlying issues that made it difficult.

  My first clue that something was wrong was when the dragonfly exited its husk and bent over backwards.  Hmmm.  This never happened before.  After often being reprimanded for interfering with the natural course of things, I suppressed the wish to help the critter.  (I am not sure just how I would have helped anyway.)  At this point, I will admit to interfering just a wee bit when the little fellow lost its grip and fell into the water.  I gently lifted him up to a leaf so he could get a good grip.  Then the insect was back on its own.

  About an hour and a half into the morphing, I noticed that the tail of the dragonfly seemed to be misshapened.  Poor little guy!  Still, the critter was determined to complete the change and was soon stretching its wings to their complete length.  It took a while for the wings to become functional but it was that tail that bothered me.  

  The dragonfly did make it through the morphing stage and did take flight...sort of...maybe.  Without the sturdy tail to act as a rudder, the little guy was sort of limping along (if one can limp in flight).  There is no way of telling exactly what went wrong but, chances are, it was something that occurred while the insect was still a nymph.  Perhaps one of the resident frogs took a nip at the nymph or it had gotten squished at some point.  Still, the determination of the nymph to make the change and become a dragonfly was inspiring.  For the critter to take flight was downright amazing.  Good luck, little one!  You are going to need it.

A Useless Fact About Blue Dashers

   Weird thoughts dominate the brain at times.  A most commonplace thing can strike up a thought that is about as crazy as one can be.  I ponder how in the world I even know some of the things but thousands of useless facts are stored in among the cobwebs in the deep, dark depths of my mind.  That one sight or sound can bring things to the surface and then I ponder.  

  Today's trigger sight was a dragonfly.  I was coming up from checking the crab traps when I spied a beauty of a Blue Dasher Dragonfly.  How I even knew what type the thing was amazed me. The name just popped into the head along with a few other obscure facts about the critter. Since I was thinking about the bug, I decided to plop myself down and visit with it a while.

   An adult dragonfly eats hundreds of soft-bodied insects each day which makes me happy.  Right now, the Bayou is inundated with bugs of all sorts.  The mosquitoes are here in masses, termites by the tons and deer flies in droves.  I need just as many dragonflies to protect me from the others! The nymph of the dragonfly lives in still waters such as the Frog Pond and in the brackish water of the Bayou.  The nymph's appetite rivals that of the adult.  Mostly, the nymph feeds upon mosquito larva. 
  
  Most everyone knows the above facts about the critters but one almost grotesque fact popped into the head while thinking about the beautiful dragonfly.  While it is not so in the adults, the nymphs have a very unusual (almost disturbing) way of breathing.  Water is taken in and expelled through their anus.  Air is extracted from this water flow which also propels the critter through the water.  Soooo......dragonfly nymphs breathe through their butts!  Weird.....I am not sure how I even know that and, to be certain, I did a bit of checking.  Yep, that tidbit is a fact. SO.....now you know!  (And now that fact shall pop into your head every time you see a dragonfly!)

Wonderment.....

  Ben Franklin once said "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."  I am not sure where Old Ben was coming from with that wealthy bit but the healthy part makes sense.   There are certain benefits to rising early in the morning.  I find I feel much better if I am up before the dawn.  The early rising makes the mornings go smoother without the feeling of being rushed in any way.  Plus!  There are added benefits to rising at this hour.  I can take a mug of coffee to the pier and watch the sun rise above the Bayou. I can feel the coolness of the air and smell the earth while it is still fresh and new.  I can hear the birds as they wake from their nightly slumber.  I, also, can catch sight of critters as they are making their first entrance in this world or are morphing from one state to another.  That is what happened this morning.  

  Just a little after sunrise, I was out back cleaning up some odds and ends of lumber that Son had dropped while building a deck on the storage shed.  He usually cleans up behind himself but, since he was not finished with the job, he had left a few scraps for later pick-up.  I decided to be a tad helpful and clean the area.  This deck is right next to the water garden he built for me last week.  Since it is a bit late in the year to start water cress or water chestnuts, I tossed a few water hyacinths in the pool just to dress it up a bit.  These will be removed at a later date.  It was on one of those hyacinths that I found my daily bit of wonderment.  A dragonfly was just emerging from its nymph stage. It was not yet an adult as it had to unfurl the wings and let them dry. Dragonflies are skilled hunters both as nymphs and adults but at this stage it is at its most vulnerable.  It is helpless to defend itself against any predators that wish to dine upon it.  I, personally, did not wish to eat said dragonfly so it was perfectly safe while I photographed it.

  I watched as the dragonfly pulled free from the useless hull of its nymph stage and then as it fluttered its wings for the first time ever. What an amazing thing to observe!  It occurred to me that not many folks ever get to see such a miraculous event.  Either they are still asleep or are hustling about and never see what nature is doing.  I sure love living on the Bayou.  I sure love getting up before dawn to experience things such as this.  Wow!

Heating Problems!

The other morning, I went out to check my dragonfly nymphs in the Frog Pond.  They were about due to climb up on one of the tall grasses and do their dragonfly thing of changing from nymphs to full-blown dragons and I was in hopes of capturing the process on film.  Instead of finding them crawling up the stalks of the water plants, I was dismayed to find them floating on top of the water.  Something had killed most of the larvae in the pond..not just the dragonflies but the mayflies, waterskippers and a few of the pond spiders as well were belly-up in the pond.  This irked me as I have been so careful to use no chemicals near the pond or anywhere else for that matter.  I just do not believe in needlessly dousing the place with harmful substances.  Earlier in the spring, I did have to spray for termites but was assured that the stuff I used would evaporate quickly enough to do no harm to the land or water.  Now this..my poor dragons were laying there dead as a doornail and I was at a loss of the cause.

Upset at the find of dead critters in my Frog Pond, I meandered the garden paths in hopes of finding just what had caused their demise.  I pondered just what I might have done to kill the very things I had been watching for the past few weeks.  As I entered the Rose Garden, the garden thermometer caught my eye..WOW! The gauge read 104 degrees and that was in the shade!  Here it was still before noon and it was already over 100 degrees!  Summer has definitely arrived here on the Bayou!  Out of curiosity, I checked the other thermometer that was in a sunny spot...oh, my!  That one read 118 degrees!  Again..WOW!  I felt rivulets of sweat roll down my back. It sure was a hot day!  Hot day?

I hurried back to the Frog Pond.  It had hit me that perhaps the water in the little pond had gotten far too hot for the larvae living there!  I plunged my hand in to the water and sure enough, it felt as hot as bath water!  It was far, far too hot for the critters!  This also explained the mass of algae that had suddenly exploded into growth in the past few days.  I now knew what had caused the mass death in the pond.  The pond water was heated by a lack of shade.  This past winter, Michael had to take out a Mimosa tree that had been growing near the pond.  The tree had been invaded by wood borers and was dying limb by limb. The Mimosa tree had been the perfect tree to have growing by the pond since during the winter, it was leafless and the sun could warm the water but during the summer the branches would leaf out providing ample shade.  The shade would cool the water making a perfect environment for my critters!  When we removed the tree, it never occurred to me what a devastating effect it would have on my Frog Pond!  Now my lovely larvae floated on top of the water instead of soaring overhead like jewels in the sky.  This problem will be fixed and soon!  Another tree must be planted to provide the cooling shade needed to keep the pond in perfect condition!  Since the roots of the large Mimosa were also causing problems, I might opt for a much smaller bush.  The False Indigo Bush or Amorpha Fruticosa is much like the Mimosa in the way it lays bare during the winter months.  I already have one on the back side of the pond and it does well shading that portion, but the majority of the water was in full sun.  If I plant another bush, my critters will have plenty of cooling shade and I will be rewarded with the beauty of many dragonflies in the garden!

Dragon Bones!

I went out early this morning to weed the tomato/pepper garden. The tomatoes are long-gone and I wanted to prepare the garden for replanting. This was not an easy task as the weeding consisted of pulling out many dewberry vines and sand burrs! Ouch! After about an hour of on the hands and knees, the job was finished! The garden plot is now ready for seeding with crowder peas and the afternoon rains will set it off right well! Needless to say, I was quite dirty after crawling around in the dust so I meandered around to the little lily pond to wash a bit of the grime from my hands before touching the doorknob. I sloshed about a bit and then noticed something that I had not seen in a few years. My little pond had been somewhat active!

On the underside of the waterlily leaf pads, hung the most interesting skeleton! Dragons had shed their "underwater" wet suits and traded them for their wings! At first, I thought there was just the one but as I peered at the pond, my eyes focused on a number of the castoff skins! They were hanging on the stems and leaves of not only the waterlilies but also of the elephant ears. When a dragonfly nymph is fully grown they will leave the water, climb up on a plant or twig to molt. Their skin will split down the back and the adult dragonfly will crawl out leaving behind the empty skin it had worn while underwater. These castoff skins are called exuvia and are left when the nymphs make the change to being the dragonflies that we see flying about the yard.

I looked around to see if I could see any that were in the process of molting but could not. The dragonflies were all already flitting about the garden. I was happy to know that my little pond was a breeding place for the dragonflies. Not only do the adult insects eat tons of bugs but the nymphs feed upon the larva of mosquitoes. The nymph stage can take up to four years to complete but once out of the water, the adult dragonfly lives a mere two months. I know that I have done posts about dragonflies in the past but I thought that the "skeleton" was just too interesting to let slip by without sharing. Besides....I love my dragons!