Later that day I was on a walk looking at the tornado blow down trail after 20 years and a walk participant found a Southern Pygmy Clubtail on one of the walk participants.

I lead two walks on Saturday with a combined 70 people attending. We caught tons of Common Baskettails, a Unicorn Clubtail, a 12-Spotted Skimmer, Skimming Bluets, and Rainbow Bluets.

At home I had a few Widow Skimmers emerge in the aquarium last week and yesterday I had a 12-Spotted emerge.

Eastern Forktail

Northern Bluet

So far for damselflies I have seen Eastern and Fragile Forktails. The Common Baskettails are thick around the pond right now and I have had several emerge in the house. I also had a Dot-Tailed Whiteface emerge in my aquarium, and our first day here I found a teneral female Ashy or Dusky Clubtail. I hope to get out with the camera soon!

I have been able to photograph some of the flora around the house. I missed seeing the Bloodroot in bloom, but it just covers sections of the woods like nothing I have seen before. I also have lots of patches of Jack-In-The-Pulpit, Swamp Saxifrage, Purple Avens, and lots lots more. I hope to compile a list over the next few years along with some nice trails to some of these hot spots.

Springtime Darner Closeup

This year marked our third pilgrimage and my first as a leader.  The weather was great most of the time, even if everything in nature seemed a week behind.  Last yeas was definitely better in terms of odes, but I still managed to see some great things.  The first walk I did was on Saturday at 2:30.  The sun was shining, but I hadn’t seen many dragonflies.  As I stopped at the shore to drop off my nets, I found a Springtime Darner emerging.  What a great way to start off the talk!  I also had a few celebrity bloggers in attendance: Jennifer from A Passion for Nature and Toni from A Spattering.  There was a lot of great questions from all age levels.

Springtime Darner Emerging

The second walk was at 10:30 am Sunday, and once again I had an emerging dragonfly.  This time it was three Common Baskettails.  I also had about double the number of participants, and three times as many questions!  I also had another blogger in the audience, Mary from Mary McAndrew’s Nature Sketching and Painting.  I took this last picture about two hours before my walk, but it was too cool not to include in this post!

  Common Baskettail Emerging

Soon after I saw my usual first damselfly, the good old Eastern Forktail. It is always a pleasure to walk the trails of the Jamestown Audubon.

We got to Camp Timbercrest later that night and enjoyed our usual Friday night pizza sandwich dinner in the pie irons. The next morning I met mon@rch at his bird banding site before we headed over to the Allenburg Bog. We only saw a few odes there, but the rest of our discoveries more than made up for it. Visit Tom’s blog to see what else we saw! Walking in the field that borders the bog property we saw a mosaic darner, most likely a Springtime Darner. At the open bog site we saw a Common Green Darner and an Aurora Damsel. This was the first time I had seen an Aurora at the bog, but this is not all that surprising since I have never been to the bog during their flight period.

After I left Tom, I headed back to Timbercrest to take the girls on an afternoon hike. Around the inlet to the camp “lake” I picked up a hitchhiker on my pant-leg, a Northern Pygmy Clubtail teneral. This was not a first for the county, but it was the first time I have ever seen one. Hopefully I will be having many more dragonfly encounters this summer!

This unique species is the only one within its genus. It is one of the Pond Damsels, family Coenagrionidae. Some other genus in the family include the bluets, dancers, forktails, and red damsels. Most people would look at this damselfly and think that it was a bluet. If you take a closer look through, you will see that there are a few differences. For one, when the damsel is at rest it will hold its wings apart like a spreadwing would. Also unlike any bluet, it has a patch of yellow on the lower sides of the thorax. Males have blue sides on the thorax with a lower yellow patch.  Males also have segments 8 & 9 almost completely blue.  In females and juvenile males the blue is typically replaced with a light brown or gray, but a blue form female does exist.

If you would like to find one, you should search in vegetation around calm water at streams, clean lakes, and ponds in early spring. It has also been found in bogs and fens. My early date is May 26 an the late date is June 9. I have found it at three locations, the Jamestown Audubon and the pond at the Rodger Tory Peterson Institute in Chautauqua county and locations in Allegany State Park including Red House lake (in Cattaraugus county).

Calopterygidae
Calopteryx maculata (Ebony Jewlwing)

Coenagrionidae
Amphiagrion saucium (Eastern Red Damsel)
Argia apicalis (Blue-fronted Dancer)
Argia fumipennis violacea (Variable Dancer)
Argia tibialis (Blue-tipped Dancer)
Chromagrion conditum (Aurora Damsel)
Enallagma antennatum (Rainbow Bluet)
Enallagma ebrium (Marsh Bluet)
Enallagma geminatum (Skimming Bluet)
Enallagma signatum (Orange Bluet)
Enallagma traviatum (Slender Bluet)
Enallagma vesperum – Vesper Bluet
Ischnura posita (Fragile Forktail)
Ischnura verticalis (Eastern Forktail)
Nehalennia irene (Sedge Sprite)

Lestidae
Lestes inaequalis (Elegant Spreadwing)
Lestes rectangularis – Slender Spreadwing

Aeshnidae
Anax junius – Common Green Darner

Corduliidae
Epicordulia princeps – Prince Baskettail
*Tetragoneuria canis – Beaverpond Baskettail
Epitheca (tetragoneuria) cynosura – Common Baskettail

Gomphidae
Arigomphus villosipes (Unicorn Clubtail)
Gomphus fraternus – Midland Clubtail
Gomphus lividus (Ashy Clubtail)
*Gomphus borealis- Beaverpond Clubtail
Gomphus spicatus (Dusky Clubtail)
Stylurus spiniceps – Arrow Clubtail (Exuvia)
*Progomphus obscurus – Common Sanddragon

Libellulidae
Celithemis elisa (Calico Pennant)
Erythemis simplicicollis (Eastern Pondhawk)
Leucorrhinia intacta (Dot-tailed Whiteface)
Libellula (Ladona) julia – Chalk-fronted Corporal
Libellula luctuosa (Widow Skimmer)
Libellula pulchella (Twelve-spotted Skimmer)
*Libellula quadrimaculata – 4 Spotted Skimmer
Perithemis tenera (Eastern Amberwing)
Plathemis lydia (Common Whitetail)

Tramea lacerata – Black Saddlebags