A Halloween Dragon
Halloween Pennant (Celithemis eponina) / © Bryan Pfeiffer
Nothing scary here – unless you’re a mosquito or some other small flying insect. Halloween Pennants (Celithemis eponina), which hunt and eat insects, range across the eastern US. They perch at the tips of low vegetation and twirl in the summer breezes like pennants. Pennant are among the few dragonflies whose wings are marked, sort of like butterflies. This is a female; males are orange and black. So if you’re a traditionalist about Halloween colors, here’s a Blackburnian Warbler.
Blackburnian Warbler / © Bryan Pfeiffer
4 comments
Two absolutely beautiful photographs of two absolutely beautiful creatures. Thank you, Bryan.
Judy Brook
Thanks, Judy. I’ll miss them this winter!
Two lovely creatures, brightening a gloomy Halloween morning in Western NY! Thanks, Bryan. I seldom see a Blackburnian without remembering the one that made me a birder 30+ years ago. When the early-morning sunshine, pouring over our shoulders on a May morning in Dunkirk, NY, fell flush on that fiery orange throat, I was a goner, smitten for keeps by one warbler and all warblers. I thought, “It’s like looking into the sun, except that you can do it without going blind.” Terry Mosher
Thanks, Terry. Oh, yeah — one good look at that orange throat and black accents would hook any budding birder.