Halloween Pennant
Male Halloween Pennant. These dragonflies are fairly common around ponds, lakes, and wetlands.
Female Halloween Pennants are yellowish rather than orange.
Halloween Pennants like to perch atop grass stems and let their wings flutter in the breeze.
Halloween Pennants fly from June through September (with stragglers into early October).
Another female Halloween Pennant. It is easy to overlook this species because they are so common, but they are some of our most beautiful dragonflies.
Halloween Pennants can be found at Oakes Quarry, Cox Arboretum, Grant Park, Caesar Creek Wildlife Area, Spring Lakes Park, Germantown MetroPark, and many other area ponds and wetlands. I also see them along the Great Miami River.
Halloween Pennants are named for their orange and brown colors, not for the date when they fly. These dragonflies are long gone before their namesake holiday rolls around. (My latest sighting is October 9th.)