Rewilding My Lot

I took a photo of this colorful creature on Frogfruit and then asked iNaturalist to identify it.

The app said Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile), a damselfly. Here’s a cropped version of the photo. It’s not very good resolution, I’m afraid — these tiny mobile insects are hard to capture!

It’s perhaps a mystery why an insect that will normally choose a water habitat is here, in a new housing development in a drought. However, I suspect that lawn sprinklers are providing temporary puddles. Certainly there seems to be a lot of excess water running in the street each day. Sigh.

This insect also reminded me that I am still learning to distinguish damselflies from dragonflies. When resting, the easiest way I know is that dragonflies hold their wings out, and damselflies (like this one) fold their wings close to their bodies. There are also differences in eyes, size, and flight patterns.