MY LIFE AS DRAGONFLY

I knew not my parents. Where did they go? Seems they'd flown off before my egg had hatched, then I and many siblings left alone. In murk of gloomy pond we had to learn to fend for ourselves , preying on live food such as tadpoles that were a tasty treat. Sadly most of my siblings starved to death, the strongest just surviving infancy. Now I grow fast; my skin tightens and tears and often I must moult to renew it. As adult it is time to leave this place. I climb a pond-plant stem into the air. My wings emerge now I must learn to fly. Soon it is time to attempt maiden flight. Each wing I test and all four working well, so now I take off to explore the sky. How wonderful it is to feel so free. At first I must practice how to fly straight but find it’s not as simple as it seems. At height, I stop, hover and look around, scanning the scene to see who’s watching me. Soon I show off and perform loop the loop then do a fly-by, for my audience. A fast forward followed by a tight turn and then back to perch at my starting point, resting a while before trying next flight. As soon as summer sun’s high in the sky I fly off to scan the scene from above to see if my predators pose a risk. I watch the sky, the pond and ground around analysing every single movement with my pair of powerful compound eyes that detect any threat approaching me. I focus far afield to find fresh meat from swarms of bumble bee, midge and mayfly. Speeding towards my chosen prey I then dive down from height to take it by surprise. In my vice-like jaws now I’ve living meat. When starving I will eat it in mid-flight. Tis time to make efforts to find a mate. I scan the scene for potential partners and soon see one and fly up close to her. We take-off together and fly in tandem then form the heart-wheel to combine our genes. At first she struggles but there’s no escape until all of her eggs are fertilised. We find a safe place where she lays the eggs, hidden deep down amid the dense pond weed. Now worn out with laying some forty eggs she feigns death to deter the other males. Then soon we split. The eggs left on their own.