There’s a three-step transition dance which I’ve noted many of us butterfliers step to. First, we were intrigued by birds and became birders. Second, we observed that butterflies have many of the same claims as birds and – slide and step – we found that we had become butterfliers.  Third, while birding and butterflying in wetland areas we noticed those amazingly colorful creatures called dragonflies. Could we possibly identify and list those quick-flying beauties as well? Could we become DRAGONFLIERS?

Since these musings of mine are called “confessions”, let me here confess that I have decided to give dragonflying a try this summer.

Hold on there! Back up! This decision on my part does NOT imply disloyalty to butterflies. Not at all. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying in my beginner’s fumbling way to identify butterflies and to add new ones to my life list. No, I’m simply responding to the phenomenon just mentioned.  I have noticed on a number of occasions when I’ve been searching watery places for butterflies that I can’t seem to locate any butterflies-or certainly not any NEW butterflies.  But nearby I see lots of gorgeous dragonflies (or could they be DAMSELFLIES?) flitting happily over the water and along the shoreline. Well, they have seduced me.

So, I now have three helping guides that I have been furtively assembling. Furtively?? Well, yes, I confess that the butterflier in me has felt just the slightest touch of guilt, but the experienced sinner in me is determined to overcome it. My three guides are: (1) Dennis Paulson’s nifty booklet Dragonflies of Washington; (2) Sidney Dunltle’s chock-full A Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America; and (3) an intriguing article by the same author in the Summer 2000 issue of American Butterflies entitled “The Many Joys of Dragonflying.” (The fact that this article appeared in our very own magazine encouraged me in my secret plan.)

You might say that I ought to have waited at least-until I could justifiably discard the adjective “beginning” before my title of “butterflier.” Shouldn’t I perhaps have confined myself to the butterflies for a few more seasons?

Well, my response is that after due deliberation my fellow WBA board members have given me permission to take this seemingly drastic step.

So there.

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