Dragonflies hunt the longest evening

The ponds near Quartier des Quais hold the day's heat as evening stretches toward ten o'clock. If you're walking here now, step closer to the water's edge. The surface dimples and breaks as insects rise from below, and above them, dragonflies patrol in wide, deliberate circles.

Scarce Chasers hang motionless in the air, their amber wings catching the slanted light. Four-spotted Skimmers dart between the reeds, each bearing the dark patches that mark their wing tips like ink spots on paper. Both species hunt with a precision that comes from compound eyes holding twenty-eight thousand lenses. They see movement in nearly every direction, tracking the smallest mayflies and midges that lift from the water in clouds too dense to count. A Scarce Chaser tilts forward, accelerates in a straight line, and closes its legs around a midge in a motion too quick to follow. It returns to its hunting post to eat.

These longest days of early summer trigger the year's greatest emergence. Aquatic insects that have spent months or years underwater as nymphs sense the warming surface and rise together. Mayflies shed their nymphal skins at the waterline. Midges spiral upward in mating swarms. Caddisflies unfold their tent-like wings for the first time. The dragonflies position themselves in the air above this abundance, intercepting insects before they can disperse inland or complete their mating flights. A Four-spotted Skimmer can catch and consume dozens of prey in a single evening hunt. The invasive Asian Lady Beetles that cluster on nearby vegetation take smaller prey, but the dragonflies work the air itself, claiming insects that no ground-dwelling predator can reach.

The light fades slowly, but the hunt continues. Dragonflies see well into twilight, their large eyes gathering the last photons of day. They patrol the same aerial territories they claimed at noon, following invisible boundaries marked by the best emergence sites and the most reliable updrafts. A Scarce Chaser hovers above a patch of water where mayflies continue to break the surface. The Four-spotted Skimmers work the margins, where emergent vegetation provides both perches and shelter for rising insects. This is the hour when the water releases its winter's work: all the larvae that fed and grew in the cold months now fuel the summer air. Listen for the dry whisper of dragonfly wings cutting through the evening quiet, and watch the water's surface catch the last light as it dimples and stills.