A wing and a slayer

I wouldn’t say I know the dragonflies at our pond like the back of my hand, but I know the common visitors and I can spot a new friend easily.

This fella had me stumped. For an hour I tried to get a picture of them soaring past me at great height and speed. It appeared to be a dragon. But it had a large “mass” around its waist. I first googled tarenchula wasp, because I know we get a few of those. But this wasn’t that. Next I tried looking at mating dragons to see if any flew around in the air creating that silhouette. Nope. Moving on I tried dragonfly lookalikes, parasites, aggressive fights but nothing matched what I was seeing until I hit upon swollen abdomen and looked at images and spotted the species! My backyard flying friend was a Black Saddlbag Skimmer!!!

The mostly clear wings have proximal color that makes it appear the dragon is wearing saddlebags!! How cute is that?

I get that I’m off the beaten path and most people would not consider looking up at the sky for an hour good entertainment. But in my not so shaggy dog story life, it was the perfect fairy wing ending.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_saddlebags