During my childhood, my playmates and I used to sing this when one of us tried to catch a dragonfly:
Tutubing bungayngay,
Huwag kang papahuli
Sa mahaba ang kamay.
Huhulihin ka ng patay
Sa ilalim ng tulay.
In English it means:
Beautiful and agile dragonfly,
Don’t you dare be caught
By such long arms.
Or a corpse will catch you
Right under the bridge.
I just tried to rephrase the song in English, but it’s not the correct translation – I actually don’t know what ‘bungayngay’ means and I’m not even sure if it’s a Filipino/Tagalog word. I wonder why I didn’t bother to ask our elders (who taught us the song) what it means. Thinking about it now, I realized that the song is basically a warning for the dragonflies; because once they’ve been caught, they will surely suffer and die. Because what we did during that time if we caught a one was play with it. We used to tie a string on it’s tail and turn it into a small kite or we would tear its’ wings in halves so it wouldn’t fly high. Yes, we were bad… but we were kids, and those days it doesn’t seem to matter because there were thousands of dragonflies flying around.
Usually, during this time of the year, hundreds of dragonflies flocked the rice fields – whether it’s planted or empty. But a lot of rice fields now are turned into a residential villages or a factory. Now, only a few can be seen and it seems children rarely notice them at all. My nephew sometimes bring home one and whenever he did I always told him to let it be and set it free.
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wow! I love dragonflies and your photos are beautiful!!
thank you very much!
Very pretty pictures. I must say I never hurt any dragonflies as a child? I could not even think of pulling off their wings, how horrible for them
I hope they are finding new homes. It is sad, mankind builds building after building tearing down lands and forests in hopes of finding new homes for it’s own, however in the process of destroying Mother Natures friends abode without the realization of the importance all insects have on the world.
yes, i was a bad kid.:( and yes i totally agree with you… may every person in this planet be more concern with mother nature.
What beautiful pictures!
thanks so much!
Wonderful captures! I especially like the red dragonfly landing on the reeds. Thank y9ou for sharing these with me. The poem was a bit hard for me to understand, but interesting.
~Anne
Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Never mind the song/poem, though i sang it, i didn’t understand it then.
Beautiful Macro! Love it!
Thanks a lot!
We have them here in Austin of all things, they are wonderful to watch.
Good for you, thanks for dropping-by here!
Superb beautiful! Thanks for sharing! 1st time to see the Blue & Green Dragon fly. Cheers!
Thank you very much, I’m more than happy to share and glad you appreciate.
Thank you again for your beautiful pictures. Dragonflies are one of my talismans, so I see them everywhere I go. I am very fortunate. I love the way you zoom in on their little faces and you can see their shimmering tiny bug souls. It makes one feel so close to them and so much a part of all nature and all the world.
Wow, that’s wonderful, thanks for sharing that. Glad you enjoyed my post.;)
It’s especially interesting that the blue and green one have faces like little old men, while the orange one looks like he has a gold ladybug on his nose.
Yes, hahaha… good observation. Thanks again!
You have no idea how much I love your blog. Amazing. Thanks for sharing
Thank you, that is so nice of you. I am more than happy to share.
Thanks for the pingback!
~Anne
surely, thanks for dropping-by!
i wish i could take photos as good as this,amazing!
thank you.
Dragonflies were backyard pests in my native Texas. I’ve seen three in San Diego in my eighteen years here. Of course, now I miss dragonflies so I enjoy seeing them in blog posts like yours. Thanks for making my evening. I’m sure this will rank at the top of my favorite blog posts in my camping trip here this evening.
thank you very much. i’m so happy you liked it that much.
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Great photos! Thank you so much for sharing them.
thank you, it’s my pleasure.