Photo by George Seiffert
Widow Skimmer
The Widow Skimmer is a dragonfly commonly found perched on vegetation or patrolling in flight over the waters of wetlands and lake edges, or even slow-moving streams. These habitats afford them ideal conditions for both preying on small flying insects and laying eggs, which they attach to vegetation at the waterline to prevent them from sinking. Eggs hatch into aquatic naiads, living for many months underwater, where they are just as fierce as predators, eating both invertebrates and small fish larvae. The last of multiple molts results in their emergence as a winged adult. You can often find their discarded final molts still clinging to stones just above the waterline. They are distributed across most of the United States, and slightly into Canada and Mexico.
The duration of each life stage is heavily dependent on local conditions of temperature and food supply. Because their life cycle depends on clean water, they are a useful indicator species. Predators include larger invertebrates and birds.
What do you love about this particular creature?
What do they reveal to you about God and our faith?
The Widow Skimmer lives at the aquatic-terrestrial border, actively and even intensely connecting the food webs “above” and “below” by their feeding, emergence, and the predation on them in turn. With the high drama of their winged emergence, The Dragonfly Story is a well-known fable making the obvious resurrection connection. But I find even more for the Christian mind to enjoy in that they do not reach their winged stage without multiple molts beforehand. Resurrection is something we can practice along the way, becoming more and more mature, even before “the” resurrection.
Also, though there are some characteristic wing patterns to Widow Skimmers, this varies so often that the better indicator of their identity is not their coloration but their overall silhouette and behavior. Which recalls to me the hymn: "and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love."
Author - Reed Loy
Reed Loy lives and pastors in the humbly meandering Contoocook River basin in New Hampshire, exulting in Baptisms, Eucharist, running amok with his family, and the long drone of a cicada in high summer.
O Shepherd who leads us in the emergence from life to life; teach us by your marvel the Widow Skimmer to mark the daily and seasonal transformations of our lives, and to embrace our apostle-role in linking the eternal and mortal economies, to the benefit of our neighbors and all the earth; bearing to us the grace of the Spirit who dances lovingly across all divides, and sharing with us the gaze of the Father who sees all. Amen.