What I’ve learned from Odeing

• I’ve tried herping, birding, and botanizing, but NOTHING prepared me for odeing.
• If you bring a camera, you will need a net. If you bring a net, you will need a camera. If you bring both you will need binoculars. If you only bring binoculars you will need a chiropractor. If you bring all three, there will be no dragonflies, stay home.
• The rarity of a dragonfly is directly proportional to the difficulty you will have with your equipment.
• There is a finite amount of time between when you press the button and the photo is taken. This is a fraction of a second longer than the time for an ode to leave its perch out of view.
• Consistent with the above, the focus time will be just greater than the time for a territorial interaction to take place.
• If netting damselflies at streamside, 90% of the vegetation that a damselfly will land on will have thorns. The other 10% will be poison ivy.
• The more uncommon a dragonfly appears in flight, the more common it is when you actually ID it.
• If odeing on a partly cloudy day, it will be sunny when you are in transit through forested areas, and will become cloudy when you arrive at a clearing. It will remain so as long as you wait. The clouds will disappear completely after you leave for the day.
• The flight time of a dragonfly is at least one unit of time (pick one) longer than you wait for it to perch.
• Atheism and odeing are mutually exclusive. You can only remain for so long under the misapprehension that a higher power is not pointing and laughing at you.

Mark Manning