While out for a mountain bike ride in the local hills(the Santa Monica Mountains), I came upon dragonflies swarming over a small area. This usually means there is something in that area that dragonflies like to eat. Turns out, this was the day that many local ant colonies had selected to synchronize their big mating swarms, where winged males and winged females are pushed out of the nest to mate, then find a place for a new colony.
A view of the general area:
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dragonflies -150630Z_DSF9247150615 by
kbkbfoot, on Flickr
I went to war with the camera I had, a Fujifilm APSC unit with 14mm(very wide) lens.
The Dragonflies:
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dragonflies -150630ZDSCF9643150629 by
kbkbfoot, on Flickr
The ants, in context:
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dragonflies -150630ZDSCF9596150629 by
kbkbfoot, on Flickr
As close as I could get to the ants:
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dragonflies -150630ZDSCF9603150629 by
kbkbfoot, on Flickr
And, finally, twelve seconds of video:
https://youtu.be/bwY8TwxNYPQ
