Photographing Dragonflies or Damselflies

I have a few new philosophies about photographing dragonflies. Step one: take as any pictures as possible, from different distances. Even if you're obviously too far away you might be able to at least get a photo you could id the species with, making it easier to find again later.

^from 6 feet away^

^zoomed to source from above^

Step two: take pictures until the critter gets bored and flies away. This increases your odds of getting a good pic exponentially. It does get repetitive later though if you're not very good about weeding out the extras.

^I have 38 pics of this one damselfly, the first time I found a spread wing^

Step three: make sure to try out manual focus if you aren't getting what you want with automatic. I've been having issues with compound eyes. I know my camera and lens are capable of getting that hint of an eye pattern, but until I played with manual focus I just wasn't getting it.

^in focus eye^

^eye actual source file size^

Random dragonfly tips. Dragonflies have a tendency to return to a few familiar perches over and over. If you startle one you can often back off and it will return in the same approximate location, depending a bit on species. Damselflies seem to be on average more flighty than dragons. They don't go as far, but they take off more. If you approach slowly enough most dragonflies aren't too flighty, some of them are even willing to transfer to your fingers if you try.