Meet the Dragonfly of our home here in the High Desert of Oregon.

Hope you all had a good weekend? We got some things that needed done , done in the garden. Now it is time to start putting out the seeds for the future flowers and the visitors to our garden! Many of my photographs of 2014 did come from our own garden. These photographs of this Band-winged Meadowhawk is no different!

These photographs came from one of our ponds, and fruit trees that hang over that pond.

I do get really good questions asked of me! The questions that is on my mind this morning was if I just push a button and take many photographs of the subject? Well…… one thing that folks may not understand is, keeping that button pushed results in oh lets just say a lot of photographs!! So unless I want to go through what a thousand, two , five thousand photographs of the same exact subject the answer is no. I do not just keep the button pushed. If that was the case I would have so many photographs to go through!! OMG makes me wince at the thought!

Like many folks who have to have a lot of stimulation, one day I can have many photographs of many different things if that day has been a active day! This of course is out of my hands, wildlife is going to do what wildlife wants to do!

The photograph above is the first of these three photographs I took. I really do not know if the subject is going to stick around? So, first thing to do is get the subject used to the sounds of my camera, and to get whatever used to me per say. Walking slow, everything has to be done with purpose!! Taking a step, you better think about that step!

Adjust the lens, since I do not mess with my camera settings I do not have to worry about that. I do not use a tripod, typically. So I do not have to worry about a tripod scaring whatever wildlife. Take a shot, or a couple shots.

Step closer, depending on how the wild creature is behaving! This Meadowhawk or dragonfly was not showing signs of stress. Adjust the lens, take some photographs.

I personally refuse to put my lens on “auto”. This is a lazy, bad habit when dealing with wildlife photography! Some lenses do not even have a auto feature! Get used to “manual”, mode. Depend on your own ability to act quickly as well as the ability to read the creatures behavior. You know if a creature is ready to fly away! If you do not, practice, practice when you have practiced, practice some more! I also keep all my lenses on the “stabilizer”, feature. If that lens has one?

When you do not use a tripod you have that chance of doing what everyone does, move. When dealing with such things as branch of a tree, and a creature, the branch moves, the leaves move and the creature will move on and on and on. This is just the way it is. You have to deal with this!

Depending on the creatures behavior, step closer. The shot above is the closest I felt I could get! I do not want to run off the creatures that visit our garden! These Band-winged Meadowhawks or dragonflies mate here in our garden. We also get other kinds of dragonflies here who will mate if they can find a mate! This took us years to build however a creature who can come and go as they please will not feel secure if they are constantly being threatened by people.

The background on these photographs is just the garden. Since this was August 1 of 2014 the garden was in full bloom. Seeing the leaves the Band-Winged Meadowhawk is on tells me this was our fruit tree that hangs over one of our small ponds. This tells me that the background on these shots is pointing out of the six foot dog fence, and that flower bed. Blurring out the fence, leaving the green and some other colors that are flowers!

Editing my photographs: These photographs had nothing done to them. I try to not do anything to them. I dont know photoshop and frankly neither does many of the people who think they know photoshop! Shutters at some of the photoshopped photographs I have seen …..

Just had a scare, news from Bend Oregon just said it was snowing! We have the door wide open and some of the windows, does not feel cold enough to snow!! It is not , raining here! We have flowers in bloom already! Others are getting ready to bloom with buds on them, like the lilacs! Last thing we need is snow or that horrible frost!! We even have some birds in nests here at home!!

Thank you for coming by and checking out these photographs of the Band-winged Meadowhawk from August 1, 2014!