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Anyone who hit the beach in New England on Saturday was able to take advantage of some pristine summer weather, but some people who decided to post up at one of Rhode Island’s most popular seaside locales found themselves dealing with an almost biblical plague of dragonflies.
As someone who’s spent a good chunk of my summers relaxing on the coast of Rhode Island, I’m pretty familiar with the various fauna that have the potential to put a damper on the day, including pesky horseflies, overly aggressive seagulls, and the venomous jellyfish that routinely pop up in its waters.
However, I can’t say I’ve ever had to deal with the situation that thousands of people at one of the state’s biggest public beaches found themselves facing when dragonfly mating season arrived in full force over the weekend.
I was actually chilling on the sand a few miles away from Misquamicut Beach in southwestern Rhode Island on Saturday when I realized the air was filled with an unusual number of dragonflies that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but it had nothing on the wild scene that unfolded there around the same time.
WCVB obtained multiple videos that were captured by people who were at Misquamicut when an otherwise cloudless day was temporarily derailed by a different kind of cloud thanks to the countless dragonflies that made up the swarm that triggered the screams of children as beachgoers did what they could to deal with the sudden invasion.
As the outlet notes, the behavior may have been linked to the dragonfly breeding season that traditionally unfolds during the warmer months of the year.
With that said, there’s also a chance they were engaging in what is known as “swarm foraging” while in pursuit of prey that made its way to the beach before the dragonflies followed suit.