How to catch a dragon

Above, starting from the left: A male black tailed skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum), a broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa), a male red-veined darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii) and a blue emperor (Anax imperator). Photo: Johanna Hedlund. If you want to use any of these photos, please just ask me.

A sunny day in July, we went out to try to catch and ID some dragonflies. Cornwall is surrounded by the sea, but dragonflies are usually found near fresh water. We found a really good pond, buzzing with both dragonflies and damselflies.

Dragonflies are very strong and fast flyers, and they have exceptional vision (humans see 60 images per second, dragonflies see 200!), so catching them is challenging. One way is to observe them as they patrol their part of the pond/ area, in this way you can stand in wait and anticipate where they are gonna pass next.

In order to ID some species, it is necessary to see them up close, that’s why we caught them. But all dragonflies that we caught were released again.

Learn more

A guide on how to catch and handle dragonflies: