Emerald City—Mount Baker Style

We live near Seattle, WA, nicknamed the Emerald City. It is, indeed, a wonderfully green location. We went to a different sort of "Emerald City" recently at Picture Lake near Mount Baker. It's a beautiful location, as can be seen here:



The reason we refer to it as Emerald City, is that it's a great place to see Ringed Emeralds—they are very common at this location.

Here's a male Ringed Emerald that perched in a tree for us.



This family of dragonflies is named for its wonderful emerald green eyes. There are a variety of different emeralds in our area, including the American Emerald, Mountain Emerald, and Ringed Emerald.

The Ringed Emerald, in particular, is named for the white rings along the length of the abdomen—one at each juncture between the segments. This makes for easy identification. Notice also how the thorax is iridescent green. This is not often as visible as it is here, but the sun was at just the right angle this day to show off the color.

We also saw female Ringed Emeralds busy laying eggs in the lake to provide for the next generation. They dip the tip of the abdomen in the water to drop off eggs, while the male hovers nearby to protect them.



Here's a female between dips in the water. The lighting here shows off the white rings on her abdomen to great effect.

I'm looking forward to our next trip to Picture Lake.