Several weeks ago while hiking at Goose Lake Park, I glanced down to see several sparkling items on the trail. Muttering imprecations at those thoughless enough to litter a park with cellophane candy wrappers, I bent to pick them up and found I was holding a pair of wings from a large dragonfly. The body was nowhere to be found. Two other pairs of wings were nearby.
About an hour later as I returned along the same trail segment I noticed movement in the bushes and spotted a flycatcher. That explained the detached wings; the flycatcher was enjoying a meal of the plump dragonflies and discarding the indigestible wings.
This week I returned to the park and headed down the same trail. No flycatchers in evidence this time, but within perhaps a 50-foot segment near a pond, the trail was littered with about 20-30 dragonfly wings. I don't know if the birds purposely leave the wings on the grass at the trail, of if there is a proportionate amount scattered through the underbrush; if the latter, they must make quite a dent in the dragonfly population.
"Gossamer" is derived from ME words for "goose" and "summer." Originally applied to cobweb-like material, the "goose-summer" might refer to its "downy" consistency, or to its appearance during a late summer season or a summer-like period in the autumn.
"Gossamer wings" is also the term used to refer to several species of very small butterflies - classically the blues, the coppers, the harvester, and the hairstreaks.
The phrase "on gossamer wings" kept running through my head, but I couldn't pin down the source until I got home and did the google. It's in some obscure poetry, but its most memorable use has to be in "Just One of Those Things" by Cole Porter...
It was just one of those things
Just one of those crazy flings
One of those bells that now and then rings
It was one of those things
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
It was one of those things...
Frank Sinatra sang this exquisitely but the song is a classic Cole Porter http://foxyurl.com/rIl
ReplyDeleteYou're right Pietr - that's a better attribution. Post amended.
ReplyDeleteTx.
I wonder if the birds deliberately leave the wings scattered about where sunlight can hit them. Don't dragonflies like hovering over shiny things?
ReplyDeleteIt would make sense that they are deliberately left there, because the trail is such a small portion of their territory that there wouldn't be enough dragonflies to spread wings diffusely.
ReplyDeleteYour lure idea is interesting. I would also wonder if the flycatchers need a level surface to pin their prey to while they dine.