As soon as the sun heats the meadow to the day’s highest temperature, the dragonflies take flight. They fly above the grasses in a zone about 8 feet deep for hours. Swooping one way, then the other, they don’t land for photos. They also don’t show up in a photograph unless the camera is pointed into the sun.

For the second year, I have breathed a sign of relief at this activity. I take it to mean that herbicide applications have not killed off the dragonflies or the insects they are eating on the wing.

The photo doesn’t capture the excitement. You have to be looking at or standing in the meadow to know the marvel of it. And it is marvelous — every warm sunny day of late summer.