Damselfly Love!

Just a photo to show the sweet side of nature. Being predators damselflies and dragonflies are ruthless killers of other insects, even their own kind. But when in love

they let you know by making the heart symbol! How sweet!

This damselfly species, Pseudagrion pilidorsum, is commonly found in streams and rivers in the Philippines and in Borneo. The red one on top is the male.

Dragonfly Haiku

ONE of my favourite haikus is by the 18th century Japanese poet Issa (一茶) (1763-1828) who writes many poems about the little living things that he sees every day - birds, frogs, snails, spiders and insects. There's hardly a tiny creature that Issa does not write about. Issa may not know how, but he does know that each of these creatures finds some kind of happiness in life:

赤蜻蛉
かれも夕が
好じゃやら

aka tombô
kare mo yûbe ga
suki ja yara

The red dragonfly -
In some way or another
He likes the evening too.

To know what a haiku is here's a good link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku
Visit this super site to read more of Issa's haiku or to learn more about the great master http://haikuguy.com/issa/aboutissa.html

Hong Ching Ting

I came across this quaint little Chinese nursery rhyme about dragonflies.

It sounds like this:

Hong ching-ting,

ching ching ting.

Shih shang ching ching ting,

shui shang ching ching ting,

feng li ching ching ting.

which I think looks like this in Chinese characters

红蜻蜓

轻轻停 (or 青蜻蜓 )

石上轻轻停

水上轻轻停

风里轻轻停

The following is my translation:

Red dragonflies

gently stop (or green dragonflies)

On the rocks gently they stop;

on the water gently they stop;

in the breeze gently they stop.

*anigif of dragonfly - thanks to Tagtooga.com

Dragonfly Cartoon 1 - Hagar

Cartoon copyright by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

My 1st Post

Bonvenon al mia unua blogo! Welcome!

This is not a blog only about dragonflies, nor about insects or wildlife, or esperanto, it's about everything or can be about anything, depending on what the blogger needs to wash out of his brain at the moment in time when he puts fingertips to keyboard!

Saluton to my polyglot friends! What do you call a dragonfly in your own language? I try to make a list in the languages that I speak or at least know a few words of. I'm surprised that I don't (or didn't until just now) know, even in dialects and languages that I'm fluent in!

I know some languages or dialects or even people of different localities in whatever language have different words for dragonfly and damselfly as in English. But for my purpose I would like to consider all members of the Odonata Order as Dragonfly to simplify things.

The list, in no particular order (therefore no favouritism shown to any particular tongue):

Dragonfly (english), Ching-ting 蜻蜓(chinese-putonghua), Pepatung or Patung-patung (bahasa malaysia - just found out!), Tutubi (tagalog), Alindanaw (cebuano), Libelo (esperanto), Tombo とんぼ (japanese).

That's all I can list without cheating (i.e. googling!)

I will try to add to the list in future posts, and would appreciate if any kind souls who chance upon this blog of mine may want to help add his or her word to the list.