Eastern Amberwing

One of the smaller dragonflies that we see around here are the eastern amberwing. At about .9 inches the only dragonfly smaller is the elfin skimmer, which reach about .8 inches. They are sometimes mistaken for Halloween pennants, because of their color, but their much smaller size, Halloween pennants are about 1.5 inches, is a dead give away.They are members of the skimmer family and like many other skimmers their colorful wings help to identify them as skimmers. Their preferred habitat is still stagnant waters, such as ponds and backwaters, in the eastern half of the United States and southeastern Canada. I frequently see them perched on rafts of floating vegetation.