About this episode

The episode explores the fascinating characteristics and behaviors of the Green Darner Dragonfly, including its migration patterns and hunting skills.

Early one morning, I found a Green Darner Dragonfly in our pasture. She had beads of dew still visible on her enormous gray eyes. I was completely mesmerized. We stared at each other, and I imagined that each of her 28,000 individual lenses were focused on me. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she as smitten with me as I was with her? Was she contemplating if I was a threat, or just considering if I would be better paired with red wine or would a dry white work just as well? Though completely harmless to a human being today, 300 million years ago running into this lady’s ancestor really would have been a frightening encounter. Pre-dinosaur dragonflies sported two-and-a-half-foot wingspans and with the same voracious appetite they have today, I’m sure she wouldn’t have limited herself to just devouring other insects. Today, the dragonfly’s insatiable appetite for gnats and mosquitoes has earned it the nick name “the mosquito hawk”. They can fly up to 18mph and can operate each of their four wings separately. Such nuanced control enables them to levitate like a helicopter, fly forwards, backwards or sideways on demand, and explains, in large part, their 95 percent success rate…

People in this episode

Host: Bobbie Emery

Topics covered

• dragonflies
• nature
• migration
• insects
• ecology

Keywords

• dragonfly
• Green Darner
• migration
• insects
• ecology
• nature
• hunting

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Green Darner Dragonfly

Places: Clatter Ridge Farm, pasture

More episodes of Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm

• Precisely What We Need · July 16, 2026 · 2 min
• I Love Hard Work · July 9, 2026 · 4 min
• Stacking Hay · July 3, 2026 · 2 min
• The Gift of Clover · June 26, 2026 · 3 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm podcast page.