Caught Totally By Surprise

I was at the San Antonio Botanical Garden late this morning (Wednesday, September 25, 2013) preparing for a hike of the South Texas Plains Native Trail I will be leading this Saturday. I had stopped along the trail to take a few close-up photos of the leaves on a Guajillo.

I happened to turn around to look behind me and was somewhat startled to see a dragonfly perched near the top of a twig only about two feet away. It didn't move at all. My first assumption was it was dead, but it didn't look dead. Then it flew off and, as dragonflies tend to do, returned to the exact same position on the twig.

I took four photos of it and could easily have taken more, but was certain at least one of the four photos would be very good. Two of the photos turned out to be more stunning than I had hoped:

There are several species of dragonflies that look very similar to this one. The best I can tell from my references, this is a Common Sanddragon.

So, I was the one caught totally by surprise. As so often seems to be the case for me, this dragonfly appeared to be more than willing to pose for a photo.