Dragonflies are welcomed here.

Dragonflies are welcomed guests in the garden. They are valuable predators that eat small insects such as mosquitoes, flies and ants.This evening, while I was walking up and down my yard watering the plants, I found this. It was a dragonfly perched stationary on a leaf of my lemongrass plant. That's the closest I can get to it without it flying off. The leaf is so light. How can this dragonfly stand on it?


I like dragonflies. I remember when I was a kid, we used to see many colourful dragonflies and damselflies near flowering plants and bushes. Out of curiosity, we would catch them and they were quite easy to catch with our bare hands. After looking at them, we would release them again. It was nice seeing these beautiful dragonflies fly off and continue with their rounds, visiting the colourful flowers that had attracted them. One day, I saw some naughty kids clipping off their wings after they catch the dragonflies. It was very heartbreaking to see these poor creatures crawling around, unable to fly. After this incident, I didn't want to catch them any more.

Dad used to tell me that insects have life too and that we should not harm them if we can avoid it. Whenever dad saw an overturned beetle, he would turn them upright again because he didn't want to see ants swarming over the it. Nowadays, I will do the same too.