Dragonfly Dinner

A quiet, warm, lightly overcast and lazy day around he pond today. The only sound is that of the birds. A cardinal, our resident mocking bird and a couple that I can’t identify. A wood thrush usually sounds off around twilight and a couple of noisy barred owls chime in with their eternal query “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?”. The lawn is freshly mowed and, as usual, the grass carp followed the mower around the edge of the pond, scarfing up every blade of grass as it blew into the water. They’re now roaming the surface, cleaning up the leftovers. Even the bass have cashed in on some of the bounty,  jumping on every unfortunate cricket and grasshopper that was kicked into the pond by the mower. Fine fare for a fish that spends much of its time leaping fruitlessly after a lunch of low flying dragon flies. Who, I’m sure find the whole thing great sport. In case you were wondering–and I’m sure you were– dragonflies eat other insects. Mosquitoes, flies, an occasional butterfly or moth–even their young. (Hi Mom! What the-!?).  And midges. Those sadistic little @#$%!, swarms of bugs which fly around your head on a hot day. And who, about the time a gallon of sweat has poured off of your forehead into your eyes, decide to go swimming in it. So I feel no sympathy for the midges, nor for the fact that dragonflies are very brutal in the ways in which they dispatch their lunch. Bon appetit!