Those are damselflies. They’re smaller and have the eyes on opposite sides of the head, while dragonflies have eyes that either meet or at least come close. They also fold their wings back. I know spreadwing damselflies that keep them at an angle and pond (aka narrow-winged) damselflies that hold them straight back…yours would be the latter unless maybe there are other options where you are.
Nice work saving them and taking some good pictures as a reward. 
Oh, they weren’t dragonflies, those are huge and too big to get stuck (didn’t sit still for photos either), but I dunno the diff between darners and damselflies..
Darners are a family of dragonflies, generally bigger ones that hover around while they hunt (they’re also called hawkers). The ones I know are mosaic darners, which are easy to recognize by their size and having mostly bluish spots all along the abdomen. But again, I’m not sure what all the ones in other regions might be like.
Ah, I thought they were smaller! There were some honking big dragonflies, they could have been either I suppose, as there were some very nice colorations.
TIL..
You are a font of all kinds of interesting knowledge!
“Are we a murder yet?”
“Thank Gawd it’s only fog today!”
“Looks much better this way, don’t you think?”
“Shall we go grab some fish, garbage, or bugs? All three?”
Few more fun dragonfly facts:
Agreed! I really like both damselflies and dragonflies. One byproduct of spending so many hours floating in lakes is that I often have damselfly nymphs climb up onto my inflatable and hatch into adults. It’s a nifty process to witness!
Are those the ones with the patterned black-and-white wings? I see red darners pretty frequently in my backyard due to proximity to a small lake.
I don’t think there are any red darners in North America. There are lots of red skimmers or meadowhawks though. Unlike darners they usually perch horizontally so they can quickly take off to grab food, and when they’re flying around it’s because they’re looking for mates instead. The ones with the black and white wings would be other types of skimmers too – eight-spotted, whitetails, or so on.
I’m just going by the common name I’ve heard for them. Looking into it a bit, I might be more accurately seeing either crimson meadowhawks or flame skimmers. Thanks for that info. Definitely horizontal perchers, not overly large for dragonflies but with robust abdomens relative to most.
‘Hey, humans are bad’: USDA using argument scene from ‘Marriage Story’ to horrify wolves
