Unfortunately Wendy, your beautiful dragonflies DO have a very short life expectancy! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

This extract from the FAQ page of the British Dragonfly Society:

"At the shortest, a dragonfly's life-cycle from egg to death of adult is about 6 months. Some of the larger dragonflies take 6 or 7 years! Most of this time is spent in the larval form, beneath the water surface, catching other invertebrates. The small damselflies live for a couple of weeks as free-flying adults. The larger dragonflies can live for 4 months in their flying stage. In Britain, lucky Damsels seldom go more than two weeks and Dragons more than two months. Most Damsels rarely go more than a week, and Dragons two or three weeks. They die from accidents and predation, and large numbers from starvation - in poor weather neither they nor their prey can fly.

So, you see, the vast majority of their lives they aren't the beautiful fly that you so admire.........