Here’s a dragonfly perched on a bamboo limb high above my yard:
We’ve had a bumper crop of dragonflies this year, maybe because of all the rain. I wasn’t able to focus on this specimen properly because of the angle of the sun and his or her speedy departure, but you can see the intricate pattern in the wings.
Open thread!
LAO
Not to be gross, but my dog caught a dragon fly yesterday (out in the country) and ate it after tormenting the poor thing. She was pretty proud of herself.
Barbara
@LAO: My dog catches and eats bugs of all kinds but she never tortures them first. She has fallen off my bed in her quest for flies and mosquitoes.
Major Major Major Major
Here’s a big ol grasshopper I saw in Denver over the weekend.
LAO
@Barbara: Maybe torture was to strong a word — she bats it around with her paws like a cat — (whatever it may be, last month it was a chipmunk that miraculously survived). I think she’s curious.
I happen to find the single minded pursuit of an insect to be one of the funniest things a dog can do.
Shell
@LAO: Mydog did the same, then threw up the undigested body parts on my bed.
Mel
We have a crop of wheelbugs in the garden (google images for a dose of Jurassic Park style horror). They are great garden pest reducers, but have a nasty bite. I got stung by one when I was a child, and it instilled a healthy fear of handling the little monsters!!
Karen
Japanese beetles, they are so beautiful – nasty things
Gin & Tonic
There’s a stream, with a series of waterfalls and pools, in Death Valley. These microclimates are fascinating – 120 degrees at Furnace Creek, and temperate with running and standing water here, attracting lots of dragonflies.
Chet
Currently camping with the cub scouts, and hiding in tents from the rain.
Last night I was designated bug fighter, and battled a few of these spider crickets. They look like big honkin’ spiders but then they jump when you get close. The moms screamed bloody murder.
bystander
As a pup, our Buster jumped in the air, swatted a moth to the ground, landed on it paws first, snarfled it up, followed by strained mastication and a final sour look. No more moths ever.
Rick Tyler, for whom I have no use, actually made me laugh. He called TrumpTV “Pyongyang happy talk”.
germy
EdTheRed
Dracarys…
germy
@Karen:
Horny buggers. They used to attack our flowers a few years ago. My wife would go out early in the morning and find them piled on top of each other – a beetle orgy.
bemused
@germy:
Omg, I liked Australia a lot when we visited but damn, that country must have the most lethal critters and bugs in the world.
germy
@bemused: Nature is fine, as long as I don’t have to go out in it.
bemused
@LAO:
One of our dogs killed a skunk recently but she didn’t get to eat it.
NotMax
@bystander
Morning Joe Goebbels.
LAO
@bemused: My sympathies.
My family had a lab/retriever mix named Shadow, and he was a stone cold killer. As he got older, slower and lost his sense of smell, the only thing he could successfully hunt was skunks. Since this was pre-internet, My poor mother had to buy vinegar douche by the case because that was the only thing that successful removed the skunk funk. Good times.
different-church-lady
A Møøse once bit my sister.
bemused
@germy:
I like being out in nature here but we have no venomous snakes or insects. We do have deer ticks and other ticks that carry diseases now that we didn’t see a couple of decades ago. I had a deer tick stuck recently, decided to go the clinic and get the pill right away, not wait for symptoms to show up.
germy
@bemused: Is it true anti-vaxers are the reason we don’t have a vaccine for lyme?
I can’t remember where I read this.
different-church-lady
@germy: Maybe at an anti-anti-vaxer website?
germy
out of curiosity I checked the CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/prev/vaccine.html
jl
The dragonfly flew off? I thought all the creatures great and small, vile or cute and cuddly came out of the tropical jungle that is Lady Cracker’s abode and joined her court. I am crushed. What happened to the magic?
bemused
@LAO:
I’ve read hydrogen peroxide mixed with dish soap is one bath remedy but that was after this dog ran through a skunk cloud twice and then killed a skunk the third time. Even that last time when she killed the skunk, she didn’t get a direct hit. She must have caught skunk by surprise. She didn’t smell too much after a regular dog shampoo bath.
bemused
@germy:
Yes, I remember reading that recently too.
NotMax
Bit early in the day for the blues but what the hey.
A Dragon and a King.
oatler.
Anybody know that Fleetwood Mac “Dragonfly” b-side? Based on a poem I believe.
ranchandsyrup
if anyone ever asks you if you like the band Imagine Dragons, don’t answer. it’s a joke set-up
Mnemosyne
Lots of dragonflies mean you have lots of mosquitoes trying to reproduce — IIRC, dragonflies’ favorite food is mosquito larvae (might be a different term). So cherish and cheer on your dragonflies to eat as many mosquitoes as they can!
Mel
@oatler.: W.H.Davies “The Dragonfly”, written in 1927
Spanky
The WaPo wants you to
Gives Donnie a chubby.
ETA: Yes, of course he’s shirtless.
Karen
@bemused: I had a black lab that would consistently go after skunks; Dawn dish detergent will cut the odor, he would sit patiently while I soaped and hosed him. I had one summer where I think he was getting baths about every two weeks, at least I didn’t have to worry about ticks or fleas just that he felt the need to apply “good scent” after a bath.
Mel
@bemused: We used tomato juice on our yellow lab after her skunk encounter. It didn’t work very well on the smell, but her fur was a psychedelic orangey-pink for a week afterwards. Sounds like the Summer’s Eve route would have been far more effective for eradicating the eau de skunk.
Gravenstone
@bemused:
Need to add baking soda, too. You need the base in there to liberate the oxygen, which ultimately makes the stink go away.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This fucking country
This is one of those things that I can easily imagine being written about a Bush/Romney/Rubio White House. I can also imagine President McCain hearing the his Vice President was attending “classes” like this and muttering to John Weaver, “Jesus, what a bunch of fucking goobers”, then getting his picture took with the cretin for targeted campaign mail.
Cain
I just an injures one on the sidewalk. He seemed to be unharmed but he keeps crawling on the ground with his head against the floor :( I moved him to a safer location. Will check up on him on my way back from my walk.
Mel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Teachable” in that context = already brainwashed
frosty fred
@Mnemosyne: I can picture dragonflies going after mosquitoes on their mating flights, so I follow you that far–but dragonflies feed on the wing and mosquito larvae (“wrigglers”) live in water, so that part doesn’t compute. (What I don’t know is whether dragonfly larvae, which are also aquatic, would eat mosquito wrigglers–maybe the smallest young ones would).
My cat also eats bugs, chiefly crickets, and then vomits them back up.
bemused
@Mel:
Ha, ha. If it happens again, I think I’ll get some Summer’s Eve and see if it works. Hope so, it would be fun to see people’s reactions if I recommended that method.
@Gravenstone:
Yes, guess I forgot that ingredient. Wouldn’t work without the b soda.
raven
My favorite song from Dragon Fly
That’s for sure
Mnemosyne
@frosty fred:
I found a link: dragonfly larvae (nymphs) eat mosquito larvae, and adult dragonflies eat adult mosquitoes, so they’re natural mosquito killers throughout their life cycle. I knew I liked them for a reason!
LAO
@bemused: I swear to dog, it works!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hope he pointed that out to his study group member Betsy DeVos, mother of four.
bemused
@LAO:
Hilarious that she had to buy it by the case. I’m picturing some double takes at checkout lines.
frosty fred
@Mnemosyne: There you are then. I have seen fully grown dragonfly nymphs eat mosquito fish, though, so it’s not a perfect system.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@germy: I’ve heard anecdotes about the lyme vaccine triggering an autoimmune disease in horses, and I believe the demand for the human vaccine fell dramatically after reports of it triggering an autoimmunne arthritis started circulating.
dexwood
For skunk odor, I’ve used this mixture successfully.
1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/2 cup baking soda
1 tsp dish washing soap (I use Dawn)
mix in pitcher, pour it on dog, rub it in, let it sit for awhile. rinse
LAO
@bemused: He got sprayed at least 4x a month, for about 6 months. And yeah, she did not enjoy the experience of buying it in bulk from the local drugstore.
bemused
@LAO:
I don’t doubt that it does. Just wish I had thought of that or heard that before. I sure hope our dog doesn’t keep up this skunk hunting thing. Last thing we need going on with this dog now. After our vet visit this morning, she is on more eye drops and her glaucoma eye has ulcered. Not a surprise to us because her eye looks just hideous. She will get the eye removed later this week.
LAO
@bemused: Oh my goodness. That sounds terrible, I hope that she feels better after the surgery. Shadow was a special case. During his prime he killed some woodland creature (squirrel, chipmunk, bird or rabbit) twice a week. When he got old and slow, his prey drive remained high but the only animal he could hunt were skunks — hopefully, your girl will age with more grace.
bemused
@LAO:
I can just imagine! One previous dog was obsessed with taking down porcupines for awhile. He got less quills in his mouth each time but we still had to take him to vet to get sedated and quills removed. We were making jokes that he just wanted to go to the vet for the drugs. He did get smart enough not to get close enough to get quills but managed to herd a porcupine home out of the woods to our yard and onto the top of a firewood stack. I called my husband at work and said, you won’t believe what our dog did. He had to come home and dispatch and dispose of the porcupine.
LAO
@bemused: I’m laughing silently to myself. You would think that a snout full of quills would cure a dog — but no. That’s why we love em.
bemused
@LAO:
She’s only 9 and fit so I have my doubts. Yes, she will feel better without the eye, no sight in it anyway and so will we. She and our other dog were digging into the ground after some critter this weekend so could she have easily punctured the glaucoma eye (they tend to bulge) with dirt or twigs. We’re just hoping we can keep glaucoma from the other eye as long as possible.
cain
Didn’t see him on my way back, I hope he recovered from whatever thing that was happening and is flitting about and being a menace to ants and mosquitoes everywhere.
bemused
@LAO:
Single minded! A previous dog and cat tag teamed a garter snake in the yard. I don’t know what the cat thought she was going to do with a snake but I do know what a dog will do. They grab the snake by the tail and whip it back and forth so fast, it’s head breaks off. I’ve seen this twice, two different dogs. I took pity on the garter snake and got dog and cat away from it so it escaped to live another day.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: In that case, I wish there were so many they’d blot out the sun! Mosquitoes are horrible this year.
Aardvark Cheeselog
@Betty Cracker:
Have an amusing boxer video.
J R in WV
Our two dogs, lab mix country dog rescues, sometimes wake up in the wee hours and insist on going outside. Usually there’s a little barking and running around, otherwise no big deal, back in in a few minutes regardless.
Their dog bed is by a floor level window that’s open when it isn’t horrible outside, so they can smell stuff, or hear things…
Back in the spring, they went off, barking madly right beside the bed, and not long after I let them out, still carrying on like Hounds of Hell, I smelled that skunky smell, and closed the windows. The dogs were back pretty quickly, didn’t catch the skunk, just got gassed totally. Were upset I didn’t let them back in a 3 am!!!
I went out to Dollar General and got 3 quarts of hdrogen peroxide and a box of sodium bicarbonate – we always have Dawn, why use anything else, and we brought them one at a time. Our shower is huge and has a bench seat, all tiled. The dog goes on the seat and gets a dose of shampoo, then the quart of peroxide and bicarb. Then you wait for the O2 to attack the sulfur compounds that stink in skunk spray.
It wasn’t terrible. I was glad to see that there are still skunks around,, they’re important part of the ecology, they eat ground bee nests aka yellow jackets – very annoying stinging bugs that aren’t related to bees at all. I have been stung by them en masse, it’s no fun but survivable.
Skunks keep them down a little. You can get right up on their nest underground, and suddenly they boil out on you. Neighbor’s dogs caught and ate most of a skunk, probably not the one that sprayed out dogs, who I have to imagine hit the ridges away from dogs after his encounter. They smelled BAD… beyond washing for a few days.
Nature, sometimes better outdoors locked away from you…
ETA: Our usual two-stripe skunks seem to be replaced by spotted skunks recently, wonder what that means? They smell a little different, more objectionable than striped skunks. Interesting, recalled it after I submitted the comment…
Betty Cracker
@Aardvark Cheeselog: That’s so cool! And nice to see a boxer with a full tail.
cope
@LAO: When our Irish Setter had his first encounter with a porcupine, our vet said that either he would never go after a porcupine again or he would always go after them. Being cognitively challenged as many Irish Setters are, he continued to go after them his whole life. A picture of him with a face full of quills (the dog, not the vet) hung on the wall in the vet’s office as a warning.
james parente
I love Dragonflies and their relatives, Darningneedles. I noticed that there is a bright red variety and a metallic Teal variety. They look like flying jewels.
Off topic: Are there any juicers who are living in Mexico as Ex-Pats?
I’m at a point in my mis-spent life where I’m realizing that S.S. and a small pension will not cut it in the USA. It looks like it could cover all expenses and then some. In fact, I would be able to eat every day of the month and still go out for dinner and drinks, with some $ left over, every month.
Any thoughts?
cope
Betty, I have been stalking butterflies, dragonflies, bees and lizards all summer trying to get some good pictures with my new camera all to no avail. So far this summer, we have had two infestations of tadpoles in the pool (precoursers to the baby tree frogs you posted recently) but they are tiny and not at all photogenic.
LAO
@cope: ?
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Was a Twitter talking point for a bit.
The Lyme vaccine: a cautionary tale (2006)
Lots of detail, but here’s a (longish) shorter:
and (no comment):
satby
@james parente: late reply, I was at work. When I’m down to only a couple of animals in the next few years I was considering living in San Miguel de Allende for a while and making it a home base to travel in Central and South America. If I could, I would move to Spain or Portugal, but that would be too far from my sons. Being a pensioner expatriate is in my future though, at least for several years.