After the rainy season was over, it has been very hot these days.
They say that the summer in Japan has tropical heat and the days whose temparature is over 30 degree centigrade have lasted for two weeks.
I hear the cicadas chirping noisily and see the dragonflies flying here and there. Both chirping cicadas and flying dragonflies are the typical scenery in summer in Japan.
Now I feel the gentle breeze blowing in through the window but it is still hot and sultry.
When I went to see ricefields, I saw a lot of dragonflies flying over the ricefields. I wonder what kind of dragonflies they are and I looked into some books and web sites .
And I found they are common skimmers (Sympetrum frequens). They appear late in June or early in July because their larva grow in the ricefields and in the shallow pond. Then they fly away up to the high mountain (more than 1000m), so we can't see them in the heat of the summer. Some say they go summering. They become red dragonflies and come back in autumn. Many Japanese like those red dragonflies (akatombo) very much.
In fact now they are not red but rather orange.
