For instance, the subarctic darner, a three-inch-long dragonfly with a yellow face and blue or green stripes on its hefty, dark-brown midsection, was observed at only two sites, one during the survey, one just after. We follow Crosby and other citizen-scientists into the prairies, wetlands, and woodlands of the Midwest, where they observe the environment and chronicle dragonfly populations and migration to decipher critical clues about our changing waterways and climate. Rosie said, ‘That book is about my sleeping daddy too, he is a beautiful dragonfly having fun and playing with Abi’.

Many states, including New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Ohio, have launched surveys for the “pure and simple documentation of distribution—which species are currently here,” says Erin White, a zoologist for the New York Natural Heritage Program who oversaw much of New York’s five-year effort. The survey turned up five species never before recorded in the state, including the broad-tailed shadowdragon—an elusive creature that flies at dusk over fast-running rivers.I reckon today the state of knowledge is about where birds were in the Civil War,” says Nick Donnelly, a renowned expert and cofounder of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, who lives in Binghamton, New York. Three of the state’s 59 damselfly species—the pine barrens bluet, the scarlet bluet, and the little bluet—were listed as threatened at the start of the survey, so extra effort was put into monitoring them. Crosby draws an intimate portrait of a landscape teeming with variety and mystery, one that deserves our attention and conservation.

When you pay attention, you prop the door of your soul ajar to welcome the unexpected and the uncontrolled. A clump of cattails revealed a small pond, no bigger than a puddle really, where Chadwick thought he spotted a spreadwing—a damselfly that doesn’t fold its wings together above its body.Measuring the width (e to f) we recommend 7cm wider each side of the window to help minimize outside light. Perchers spend most of their time perched and just fly to get to the next spot, catch food, or defend territory.