“Why are there so many dragonflies in prospect park this year?” asks a Googler. Are there? Populations rise and fall through the years, depending on weather, food supplies (adult dragonflies eat other insects), disease ~ the usual ebb and flow of expansion and contraction amid animal and plant populations. (Only we humans have managed to game that system of checks and balances.) Because Prospect’s dragonflies start their lives in fresh water, the health of that habitat is also telling.

I was away this weekend, but last Thursday there were many Green Darners over the Long Meadow between the Picnic and Tennis houses. This is the largest species of dragonfly you’re likely to see in the the park; like Monarch butterflies, they migrate south. Today I didn’t see a single one when I crossed the Long Meadow, and only noticed a couple over Nelly’s Lawn.

But if your timing is right, you can be positively surrounded by a cloud of dragonflies in Prospect Park during the late summer and early fall. Take that, Magic Realism!