Swallows, dragonflies, carnage -oh my!

16 years ago

One day last week while washing dishes and looking out my kitchen window I noticed 20 or 30 birds flying around the yard. At first I thought they were bats the way they were flapping their wings and flying around swooping in circles. But it was mid afternoon and the bats don't come out until dusk.

Then I noticed the swallow tails and realized they were barn swallows. They were swarming and catching dragonflies. We've lived here for 27 years and I've never witnessed this before. We've never even seen a swallow in our yard and we've never had so many dragonflies either. It lasted about 30 minutes and then it was over.

I thought it was really interesting. Friends of mine who have houses at the Jersey shore have also mentioned that they've never seen so many dragonflies before.

Who said life in the suburbs was boring!

Maire

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Comments (9)

vala55
16 years ago
How exciting for you. We have quite a few DF here every year. We live near dense trees and a drainage pond, that probably attracts them. This year we also had a Mississippi Kite which also like dragon flies. Until this year we also had butterfly swarms.
alisande
16 years ago
That is really interesting . . . and maybe painful to watch? I'm a big fan of dragonflies, and am always (unsuccessfully) trying to photograph them in my yard. I'll have to tell them how lucky they are not to be living at your house. Maybe now they'll be more cooperative.
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Around ponds, lakes or shallows in other waterways they like horsetail grasses, cattails and plants that attract mosquitoes and flies and plants that grow in the shallows of water. However, they will use any flower or plant in the garden to attract mates. After mating, the male drags the female to a pond or shallows of some kind of waterway where she will lay her eggs. He protects his mate from harm by keeping the grip he had of her head while mating while she dips her tail into the water depositing 100s of milky looking eggs. The eggs are about the size of a grain of sand. As the eggs develop they will change color turning brown and getting darker. They will lay there on the bottom in the murky water all winter and in spring the nymphs will hatch out and crawl around on the bottom eating debris off the bottom. When the time is right in summer, they crawl the stems of water plants to dry out, their old skin cracking open and emerging as a young dragonfly. It will hang on to that plant allowing its wings to dry and then take off flying about your yard searching for insects to eat and searching for a mate. The whole process takes a year. It is quite a remarkable thing to observe. You can probably find more detailed, scientific info on the internet, but this is what I have observed in and around my yard and my Koi pond. My yard is filled with them right now flittering about from flower to flower and plant to plant like butterflies, hunting and courting. A very amazing insect! They swoop down over the lawn scooping up mosquitoes and other insects and bugs. Interesting to watch them perch on a twig and munch down on their prey. They aren't called "mosquito hawks" for nothing! ~sweetannie4u
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nicole__
16 years ago
We have swallows that fly/live here, but I didn't know they ate dragonflys......Cool to know that!!
iowagirl2006
16 years ago
We have SWARMS of dragonflies and SWARMS of swallows - we also have SWARMS of mosquitos, lol!

Oh they are terrible - the mosquitoes!!!

I haven't seen the swallows going for the dragon flies - but they are going after the mosquitos - I assumed the dragonflies are also.
chisue
16 years ago
In our area the swallows and the dragonflies are having a mighty feast this summer. Rain, Hot and Humid = Mosquitos. I'm very grateful for the hunters!

This has been a big year for birds of all kinds here. We are bordered by a creek (eventually feeds into the Chicago River). We have robins through the winter, then all the others come up. I did hear a goose calling overhead last week, though -- early 'tallying' of the flock? Seeing who has reservations for the migration?
jel48
16 years ago
We've seen a lot more dragonflies here this summer then usual too.
User
16 years ago
I'll be glad to trade you. I have never sen so many snakes before. I am getting to be a real house body!
donna37
16 years ago
For a couple of weeks we had dozens and dozens of dragonflies flying around. Have never seen that before in the 30 years we've lived here.
susanjf_gw
16 years ago
i should have had a camera handy when 2 were doing "it" on my screen the other day while i was doing dishes, lol..

Swallows, dragonflies, carnage -oh my!

Comments (9)

vala55

alisande

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