For local dragonfly researcher, sunshine and skill net natural delights

Birds have Audubon and dragonflies have Paulson.

John James Audubon used paints to record his avian sensations, and Dennis Paulson of Seattle uses a camera to capture and catalog the lives of odonates.

Paulson regularly crisscrosses the globe to teach and work on conservation issues for these inimitable insects, which include true dragonflies and their daintier cousins, damselflies.

"New species of dragonflies are still found regularly," said Paulson, director emeritus of the Slater Museum of Natural History in Tacoma, whose work is fueled by the high of discovery. "Surprises come again and again and the chance of actually finding something nobody has ever seen before and catching it in your net is a perennial delight in studying dragonflies."

Paulson provided common names for half our Washington species (including cardinal meadowhawk, river jewelwing and sedge sprite) and has described (made the first scientific record of) 50 new species worldwide. He houses 60,000 collected odonates in his Maple Leaf neighborhood basement.

At 69, Paulson still nimbly swings a dragonfly net. Going on a field trip with him is a delight not only for his wry sense of humor, but because he's as enthusiastic as a child in sharing his knowledge. Our outing together was sandwiched between his travels to Africa and Georgia, amid the dust of a Slater Museum relocation (picture boxing up Darwin's attic), and in the throes of a book draft on the dragonflies of North America to be published by Princeton University Press. Still he made time to visit a lake and talk about his favorite fauna, showing in hand the features that have enchanted him for more than 40 years.

It's all in the wrist

Catching a dragonfly is one part luck, one part skill and eight parts sunshine.

As we approached our destination, Square Lake on the Kitsap Peninsula, the promising blue-sky day gave way to fat stacks of cumulus clouds. "I had to show you a typical dragonfly field trip," joked Paulson.

As we left the car and walked toward the shore, it became clear how solar-dependent our subjects were as legions of chalk-fronted corporals headed for the trees. Part of the skimmer group, these dragonflies perch on the ground and shoot up to catch their prey in darting sallies, flycatcher-style. A few remaining corporals perched on a nearby picnic table and cement slab.

Using a dragonfly net requires patient stalking combined with abrupt, well-aimed sweeps. Paulson caught a grounded corporal on his second attempt, and adeptly held the wings so we could examine its white-blue markings and bulging eyes. The largest compound eyes of any insect, they have thousands of light receptors — allowing dragonflies to see colors, movement and forms of light invisible to humans.

As the clouds multiplied above, we turned our attention to the water's edge where delicate, near-transparent damselfly tenerals (newly emerged adults) fluttered, their flight tentative like a moth's. It takes a day or more for many species to achieve their full pigmentation and for new wings to grow strong. Searching reeds in the shallows, Paulson found several damselfly exuviae — tiny casings left behind as these insects turn from creatures of the water to creatures of the air.

Without warning, another well-aimed snap of Paulson's net yielded two adult damselflies in full color: a Northern bluet and a Pacific forktail. Their distinctive patterns feature a bright blue so rare in nature it could have been painted by pond fairies.

This is one of Paulson's favorite spots, where during a mass emergence (when members of one species all hatch on a single day) he's seen the reeds around the lake "festooned with spiny baskettails," and on a good day he's spotted up to 10 different species.

Little-known wonders

Though throughout his Florida childhood he was immersed in the habits of nature (his mother looked the other way as he returned from yet another excursion into the Everglades with something scaly, slimy or both), Paulson's focus on dragonflies happened serendipitously. As a University of Miami student, accompanying a friend on an expedition to gather water hyacinths, he was impressed by the number of dragonfly larvae on the aquatic plants. The trip coincided with an entomology course in which the professor assigned making a collection of an insect order. Paulson chose odonata and a lifelong devotion began.

Paulson calls dragonflies "birdwatcher's insects" because they have many of the attributes that birders hold dear: They are fantastic fliers (their four wings can move in four separate directions at once), and some reach speeds of 30 mph. Though quiet in flight, catch one in a net and you'll hear the wings whirring madly like the golden snitch of "Harry Potter" fame. They come in a rainbow of colors and have complex courtship behaviors and reproductive habits. Like birds, they make predictable seasonal appearances and some species even migrate.

"Their behaviors can be used as field marks [distinguishing a species]," Paulson explained. "Notice whether they fly lower or higher, faster or slower, land on the ground or on vegetation." Their tandem mating posture is unique to dragonflies. Known as the wheel position, it's like "Kama Sutra" on the wing.

Dragonflies lack the showy wings of butterflies and the ubiquity of birds, but their comings and goings are just as absorbing and much less well known. This is one reason dragonflies need champions. Paulson is ever on the lookout for someone to organize a Washington Dragonfly Society — promising to be a charter member. Could it be you?

Freelance writer Kathryn True of Vashon Island is a regular contributor to Northwest Weekend. Contact her through her Web site: www.kathryntrue.com