A picture is worth a thousand words, but I don't have a picture, so the thousand words will have to do.
I had just completed a run through the lovely Morton Arboretum. My legs growled at me, and I had burned all of my energy climbing hills-novelties now that I live in Chicago. Breathing hard, I limped towards a bench overlooking a small reed-lined pond. Next to the bench, just above a patch of grass, tiny figures swirled. When I neared them, I could see they were dragonflies, big ones, between two and three inches long. Dozens of them darted through the air, no more than waist level above the ground, feeding on a swarm of smaller insects rising from the grass. The patch of slightly-less-green grass next to them, strangely, was uninhabited. The magic of these beautiful creatures drew me into their swarm, and a combination of gravity and curiosity soon carried me to the ground, where I sat, knees tucked up, to watch the dragonflies at eye level.
At first, the dragonflies swerved warily away from me. A few mosquitoes landed on my arms, eager to tap in, and I wondered if I should just continue back to my car. But soon, the dragonflies resumed their feeding around me, and suddenly, I was free of pestering insects. We entered a symbiosis: I attracted flies and mosquitoes with my heat and exhalation of carbon dioxide, and the dragonflies eagerly swooped in to grab their prey. I, in turn, could sit in peace, free of hungry mosquitoes.
I watched, amazed, as these creatures performed feats of aerial acrobatics. They were tiny helicopters, but with capabilities far beyond the reach of our own technology. They would zoom straight towards me, just dark silhouettes, then bank suddenly, flashing vivid sky blue. The speeding insects dipped and wove all around me, wheeling 180 degrees in an instant. They would suddenly sweep straight upwards, interrupting their course to snatch insects from the air. It was like being in the midst of a frenzy of feeding sharks, diving and wheeling after small fish. Graceful, agile and deadly. These were prehistoric insects, smaller versions of the ones that evolved during the Carboniferous era, with such an effective flying structure that they remain relatively unchanged today. In my mind, I was watching the feeding of a herd of miniature dinosaurs.
I was entranced. Clearly, I was of no concern to these dragonflies, and they swooped right past my face, above my head, gathering their bounty. So close I could hear the papery crashing of wings when one tried to chase off another, or perhaps when they simply collided, too fixated on their prey to notice one another.
Eventually, the swarm shifted on to another patch of grass, possibly having cleared their hunting ground of prey. Refreshed by my commune with the inhabitants of the natural world and continuing to absorb the magic of that space, I moved on to the next moments of my day.
I had just completed a run through the lovely Morton Arboretum. My legs growled at me, and I had burned all of my energy climbing hills-novelties now that I live in Chicago. Breathing hard, I limped towards a bench overlooking a small reed-lined pond. Next to the bench, just above a patch of grass, tiny figures swirled. When I neared them, I could see they were dragonflies, big ones, between two and three inches long. Dozens of them darted through the air, no more than waist level above the ground, feeding on a swarm of smaller insects rising from the grass. The patch of slightly-less-green grass next to them, strangely, was uninhabited. The magic of these beautiful creatures drew me into their swarm, and a combination of gravity and curiosity soon carried me to the ground, where I sat, knees tucked up, to watch the dragonflies at eye level.
At first, the dragonflies swerved warily away from me. A few mosquitoes landed on my arms, eager to tap in, and I wondered if I should just continue back to my car. But soon, the dragonflies resumed their feeding around me, and suddenly, I was free of pestering insects. We entered a symbiosis: I attracted flies and mosquitoes with my heat and exhalation of carbon dioxide, and the dragonflies eagerly swooped in to grab their prey. I, in turn, could sit in peace, free of hungry mosquitoes.
I watched, amazed, as these creatures performed feats of aerial acrobatics. They were tiny helicopters, but with capabilities far beyond the reach of our own technology. They would zoom straight towards me, just dark silhouettes, then bank suddenly, flashing vivid sky blue. The speeding insects dipped and wove all around me, wheeling 180 degrees in an instant. They would suddenly sweep straight upwards, interrupting their course to snatch insects from the air. It was like being in the midst of a frenzy of feeding sharks, diving and wheeling after small fish. Graceful, agile and deadly. These were prehistoric insects, smaller versions of the ones that evolved during the Carboniferous era, with such an effective flying structure that they remain relatively unchanged today. In my mind, I was watching the feeding of a herd of miniature dinosaurs.
I was entranced. Clearly, I was of no concern to these dragonflies, and they swooped right past my face, above my head, gathering their bounty. So close I could hear the papery crashing of wings when one tried to chase off another, or perhaps when they simply collided, too fixated on their prey to notice one another.
Eventually, the swarm shifted on to another patch of grass, possibly having cleared their hunting ground of prey. Refreshed by my commune with the inhabitants of the natural world and continuing to absorb the magic of that space, I moved on to the next moments of my day.
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