Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

About the Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

The Halloween Pennant wears its name on its wings: amber-orange panes crossed by wide chocolate bands, the closest thing Texas has to a stained-glass dragonfly. Males glow more orange as they mature, and in flight the banded wings flicker like a tiny pennant snapping in the wind.

Pennants earn their group name from how they perch -- clinging to the very tip of a tall grass stem or twig, broadside to the breeze, wings canted at odd angles while the stem sways beneath them. Unlike many dragonflies they stay out in the heat of the day and even fly in light rain, hawking small insects over ponds and wet meadows.

This species is common across much of Texas around ponds, lake edges, and marshy fields, with a long flight season that in the southern part of the state stretches nearly year-round. My photo comes from a lakeside stand of grass where a single pennant kept returning to the same swaying perch.

That habit of reusing one favorite stem is the photographer's way in. Pre-focus on the perch, wait for the return, and let the breeze bring the wings around broadside -- backlight turns those amber panes into lanterns.