(BGR) Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata)

6/3/12 PL DE
http://bugguide.net/node/view/601

My first Ebony Jewelwing made an impression on me. The whole time he stayed well within a square foot. Judging by the pictures, it was more likely an 8" patch he stayed in until he tired of me.

I first noticed him as something dark moving in the lawn. He was doing a lot of posturing and wing fluttering. The posturing consisted of bending his abdomen from side to side at a 45°- 90° angle to his body which, at first, had me believing he was badly injured.

When he was horizontal he moved his abdomen down to the ground in a manner that made me think he was a female ovipositing. This wasn't a rapid motion, but a leisurely and gentle motion that suggested probing (for want of a better descriptor).

He fluttered his wings quite a bit. The fluttering wasn't used for locomotion, although he did "flit" twice to move and inch or two. (The flutter was different from the open and close of the wing that I saw on another individual a few days later.) I also observed him "walking" from leaf to leaf, from plantain, to clover, and finally to one of our rare blades of grass, from which perch he began the posturing all over again.

He also liked to stop from time to time and turn upside down. He'd put his head down near the ground between the vegetation followed by bending his abdomen down as well, with the result that his wings looked like black leaves sticking up in the air. The effect of that was astonishing to the naked eye in that it appeared the
wings were disembodied. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out why his eyes were orange until I noticed in one of the pictures, where he's upside down,
his eyes look gray, or taupe, so I just put it down to something to do with the light. It was a heck of a day at lawn, sir!

http://bugguide.net/node/view/656609/bgimage