Thanks everybody for making the image of the Dragon Fly such fun. I would like to tell you the true sad story of that insect, so that, for some, there may be a little clarety on why the bug was sold short on the contest image.
In all fairness, except for the wings, the bug part on the photo is all there was. My children and I went to our local zoo and when we walked on the footbridge in the lily pond, we discovered a huge yellow dragonfly sitting on the wooden deck in front of us. My daughter took our camera to take a picture. To our sad surprise, we noticed that the poor creature had lost a huge part of its tail. Weather somebody carelessly stepped on him on the footbridge or he had freed himself of a bird attack we will never know. What we did know was that he was very much alive.
We placed him on the green plants, safely away from careless feet. And we took some more pictures. On the Internet we discovered that he should not even have been where he was. Because this type of huge dragonfly is a Mediterrainian creature. Probably one of the many signs that the climate is realy changing in Europe, that this dragonfly ended up all the way in the North of The Netherlands.
And, because of the beautifull colours, I thought I would chance it, sending the image in for the voting queue. Not the whole photo, that would be a little sad. No, just enough to make you all get inspired to work a little magic. To keep the dragonfly alive a little longer.
Here is the whole image we took.
I tried to rescue a dragonfly in August, when I sat it into a scale filled with water and sugar - surprise: it did not help...
thanks for sharing that story aj.
* bump *
