Nice Dragonfly, Nice Day!

Some time ago, on a beautiful crisp Fall morning, Betsy and I took a short ferry ride from our home in Anacortes, WA to San Juan Island, in the heart of the San Juan archipelago of northern Puget Sound. In the photo below, we're coming into Friday Harbor, where the ferry terminal is located. After disembarking, we spent the day exploring the island by car—with an eye out for interesting dragonflies, of course.  We weren't disappointed.

Pulling into Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

One of our first stops was Roche Harbor, where we had a nice lunch on the pier. Lots boats anchor in this harbor, and you can see many of their shore boats docked in the photo below. The name of the large boat in the foreground pretty well sums up the feeling of the place.

I went into an old Mom-and-Pop general store with wooden floors, crab traps, fishing gear, as well as groceries and snacks. I picked up a delicious ice cream bar for us.  It was wonderful on a pleasant day like this.

Roche Harbor, on San Juan Island, WA.

After lunch we headed for Lime Kiln Park on the western shore of the island. The land you see in the distance is Canada's Vancouver Island. The passage of water between the islands is the Haro Strait, known for frequent visits by pods of killer whales. We saw groups of porpoises, and a pod of whales in the distance.

A lighthouse overlooking Haro Strait on the west shore of San Juan Island.

Next, we dropped by a small pond that looked like good dragonfly habitat. Sure enough, we saw lots of Cardinal Meadowhawks, a few Striped Meadowhawks, and some Spotted Spreadwings. The activity level was quite good.

The pond was in the middle of a large sculpture garden. The photo below shows a dragonfly sculpture we found there. It was quite detailed, even in the wings and the eyes, and it made me think of the large dragonflies that flew during the Carboniferous period.

Dragonfly sculpture on San Juan Island.

This dragonfly was a bit large to hold in one's hand, but worth the try anyway.

"Nice dragonfly."

A beautiful day with fun adventures!