Just as with grasshoppers, beetles, and moths, I see few dragon flies anymore in my yard, day or night, and this bothers me. Imagine my delight when I noticed this one by the back door, as I was about to retire indoors from late hand-watering, after a hot day. It is another class of insects that appear to me to be in far lesser numbers than years past, although this is a subjective observation of mine. What’s going on in addition to pesticide usage? I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in the late ‘60’s, while still a boy, and she foretold what we have an ominous taste of these days.