Relief from Hell, Dragonfly Style
This is from the screenshot of my local weather forecast as of 8:32 PM:
If you haven’t figured it out, this is the “Hell” referenced in the title. It was over 100 all afternoon; 97 is pretty good in comparison even if only a few minutes before sunset.
So needless to say the pond was as popular as ever this afternoon, especially since I left all four misting nozzles running all day.
I like this guy’s solution; after jockeying with other males all day he planted himself on one of the pitcher plant leaves on the edge of the mist:
He didn’t seem to give a rat’s arse about me fumbling around the edge of the pond trying to get set up for a decent shot of his cool perch.
This looked tempting enough for me to briefly consider joining him:
In the meantime, the buzzing Bhishti were fetching more water for the hive too.
(What’s a Bhishti? Hint: Gunga Din. Wiki: Bhishti )
Behind cohutt's fence 
Oh, and originally I thought you were talking about the politics in D.C. today. Silly me.
Beautiful photos! Amazing! We’re having a muggy day in the high 60s in Space Needle Land today, so yeah, your temperatures do sound quite unbearable.
LOL there isn’t such thing as “muggy” in the 60s. We call that “cold and clammy” here. 😉
Sheesh! Hot as hell sounds hot. I love the photo of the little dragonfly (is that what it is.. I don’t know the difference between those & the other types) How would you feel if I shared your photo on Facebook & gave you credit? I won’t do it unless you give the go ahead. I sure love it though!
When it’s 95 here it’s a “dry” heat so it’s supposed to feel better than humid but it’s still miserable for me. I need a misting system & a pond! Does the pond take much management?
Have at it, thanks!
OK thanks! I just shared it to my Facebook feed. I put the address for this blog post too. Thanks for a great photo
The best pond for wildlife is a mostly unmanaged one. Let the ecosystem develop and stay out of the way and you’ll be surprised. Circulated water isn’t a good thing for this sort of thing; frogs and a lot of marine bugs like still water. No filtering, the plants seem to do a good job. No fish (eat tadpoles sometimes). No mosquitoes, the water striders and other predatory bugs take care of them.
The misting set up is primarily to cool the air nearby (ferns and other less heat tolerant plants) wahile keeping the pond topped off and slightly overflowing (into bog basins next to it.) . It also leaves tiny drops of water on everything, which some insects (esp butterflies) seem to like.) Birds love it and need it-
Oh, I forgot…. the bees or Bishti (I’ve never heard that term before but looked at your link) are great too! You’re quite a natural at photography. Seems you have an eye for what to take & how to take it or at least which ones to save. 😉 have five hives now. They have the creek to go find water but they’d love a pond on the place too.
Thanks re: photography. I;m learning some but taking a lot of shots helps. Also having the camera ready to go all the time is a plus.
I’m not ready for hives yet, but would be happy if anyone wanted to park one here for a while. 🙂