The dragons of summer...

Calico Pennant, though a little rough on the edges

An Eastern Amberwing 

I will just say it is a Bluet and leave it at that

A Blue Corporal, anyone?

A Great Blue Skimmer?

Widow Skimmer

I spent a week with my son's Boy Scout Troop last summer.  Since the most comfortable place was down by the lake, that's where I spent a fair bit of my time.  With all the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, birds were fairly scarce, but dragonflies don't really seem to care too much about chaos.  There were a fair number of Odonata zipping around.  As I mentioned, I think the different dragonflies are harder to distinguish than the different sparrow species.  A Blue Corporal and a Great Blue Skimmer look awfully similar to an untrained eye, but after going back over these, I have a little better feel for how to photograph dragonflies.







There are three or four Bluets that look nearly identical.  I did the best I could using  www.odonatacentral.org.

















The angle could be the only difference between these two, but I think the abdomen sections are different.











At least the Widow Skimmers were easy.  I'll skip the obvious pun, because they weren't very little.