Lance-tipped Darner, Lodge Lake, WA

PATIENCE, PATIENCE.. HAS ITS REWARDS

Indian Paintbrush grace the trail leading to Lodge Lake, Snoqualmie Wilderness, WA; 8/10/2012.

Last weekend I posted some photos of a young one-legged Northern Harrier that I found along the trail leading to Lodge lake, in the Snoqualmie Wilderness just East of Seattle, WA. This weekend I'll feature some of the dragonflies and damselflies that I found at Lodge lake.

When I reached Lodge Lake, there were some good-sized dragonflies buzzing and hovering over the shoreline of the lake. I waited for many minutes for one of these guys to land on something so I could try to get a photo and ID, but they didn't land. They kept airborne. Sometimes they would hover over a spot for a few seconds, but mostly they cruised back and forth at varying speeds, making it very difficult for me to get a focus of one in my viewfinder.

A Lance-tipped Darner appearing in my viewfinder, Lodge Lk, WA; 8/10/2012.

After many minutes of trying to follow the path of one of these dragonflies (Above), I knew it would be in vain. Either they were too fast and sporadic for me to follow with my Sigma lens at its 500mm maximum zoom, or if I zoomed out to less magnification, I could not get any in focus, as they were too small and far away.  So I tried a new tactic...

The same Lance-tipped Darner entering further into my viewfinder...

My strategy was to locate a common spot that these dragonflies seemed to prefer. Then I chose a focus point as close to the spot as I thought a dragonfly might come close to. Then I waited (and waited...) for a dragonfly that was tending to hover instead of cruise, to come close to that area.

...the Darner almost completely in my viewfinder...

Then I would raise my prefocused camera and aim it to the area hoping that the hovering dragonfly would wait long enough in that spot and be close to my prefocal point.

...okay, he is now completely in my viewfinder, still hovering...

Once I could locate the hovering dragonfly in my viewfinder, I fine-tuned the focus trying to find the sweet spot that would put it in focus.

...getting closer to my focus...

I started bursting my shutter at the same time keeping the dragonfly as close to the center of my viewfinder as I could, while fine-tuning the focus, as the dragonfly would keep changing its position, but luckily it was still hovering and not zooming off.

...still hovering, giving me a chance to fine focus...

... getting closer to a sharp focus...

As I kept bursting, it suddenly moved into a nice focus, while I tried to keep my arms steady while trying to hold still a Sigma 150-500mm zoom lens on Canon Rebel EOS D7 body (over 6 lbs of equipment) for 15-20 seconds. But those of you who focus on a moving target while bursting, know when you think you captured a nice image, even while the shots are going by at 8 per second. I had that feeling, that I captured the shot (out of several dozens) that might be a good one.

At last ... the Lance-tipped Darner, Lodge Lake, Snoqualmie Wilderness, WA; 8/10/2012.

I think this is it (Above), the one shot out of at least 5 or 6 dozen attempts to get a decently focused image of a Lance-tipped Darner, the perpetual flyer, the one who wouldn't land, the "catch me if you can" Odonate member. Al;l the photos in this post came from the same series of bursts.
Of course, after getting this photo, I thought I could get another, and stayed for ten minutes more trying to capture another successful image. But alas, I didn't even come close to getting another dragonfly to hover into my viewfinder. Or to be more accurate, I couldn't get my viewfinder to find a hovering dragonfly.
As you can read, I have identified this Northwestern dragonfly as a Lance-tipped Darner, but being a very much beginner in dragonfly knowledge, I cannot be sure that this a Lance-tipped Darner, but it seemed to have the most similar traits of the all the dragonfly pics I researched.