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

This past weekend kicked off the ode season for me. Friday we drove down to Jamestown to meet Karen’s old Girl Scout troupe to spend the weekend camping. On the way we stopped by the Jamestown Audubon to take a walk around the ponds. It was a bit chilly and windy, but I saw my first dragonfly of the season at the first pond we saw. It was a Common Baskettail teneral that was clinging to the grass on the edge of the pond. I usually find mass emergences this weekend so it was right on schedule.

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!

While I have been waiting for my wife to go into labor I have been working on my records.  Yesterday I finished the data sheets for the NY DEC survey, and dropped them in the mail.  Today I finally got around to logging into my OdonataCentral account and start uploading records.  I just finished putting in all new county/species records from 2005.  I had 15 new records in 2005, but only uploaded 13 of them.  The other two did not have good enough pictures to make a correct ID, but I have better pictures from 2006.  Uploading your records is made very easy.  Before they are accepted a biologist needs to review each record for correctness.  This site is the definitive storing house for dragonfly research.  You can search by counties or by species.  It uses Google earth to display collection locations.  Check it out and upload your records!

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).

This year was certainly not as productive as 2006, but it was mostly due to me. I took a new job this spring and spent the summer working through the transition. It also involved me moving from Chautauqua to Niagara county. I only visited 15 sites. Regardless of this I was still able to add 4 more dragonflies to my NY list, the Common Sanddragon, Beaverpond Baskettail, Beaverpond Clubtail, and 4-Spotted Skimmer. That brings my total count in NY up to 64.

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

July 21st I went with the family to visit the mighty Niagara River to see the falls. I was also hoping to do a little surveying while I was out. We had a great time exploring Goat Island, taking a voyage on the Maid of the Mist, and walking to the foot of the falls in the Cave of the Winds. I did not find one dragonfly though! I’ll admit I wasn’t preforming an extensive survey, but the whole day I did not see a single ode. I would assume that this is because the rapids are so violent. I also do not know what flies on other parts of the river. Has anyone done any surveying above or below the falls?

I have been very bad about updating lately.  Thats because of some changes in my life right now.  I took a job in Medina and am in the process of moving to Lockport.  Because of this I have not had time for much surveying this summer, but the upside is that I now have four more counties that are easily accessible.  I just have to find places to go!  Today was the first day I ventured out at lunch.  I stopped at a small stream running through a park in Medina.  From the car I saw many Powered Dancers, but nothing else.  I suppose I’ll need to get out of the car and do some walking soon.

I made a purchase recently that has already been a great addition to my insect pursuits, a pair of close focusing binoculars.  After much (~3 months) of consideration I went with the Pentax Papilio 8.5×21.  They focus down to 18 inches!  I had also seriously considered the Eagle Optics Ranger 8×32, which I had tried out, but didn’t like as much.  I am happy with my choice, and cant say enough about these!  They act like a hand-held microscope if you are close enough, and work great as binoculars too.  I have been using them for birds with great success.  The best par was they were practically free.  I didn’t want to move my jars of change, and I didn’t want to roll it, so I took it to one of the coin counting machines in the grocery store.  If you get a Amazon gift certificate instead of cash it doesn’t cost anything.  So I used my found money to cover the bill…

Here are the results of my last two “real” surveys.

  6-24-07 Levant (~15 minutes)

• Ebony Jewelwing
• Blue-fronted Dancer
• Blue-tipped Dancer
• Arrow Clubtail exuvia
• other exuvia (x2)

6-24-07 Clay Pond (~30 minutes)

• Widow Skimmer
• Eastern Forktail
• Variable Dancer
• Fragile Forktail
• Skimming Bluet
• 12-spotted Skimmer
• Calico Pendant
• Slender Bluet
• Common Baskettail
• Eastern Pondhawk
• Prince Baskettail
• Ebony Jewelwing
• Common Green Darner
• Rainbow Bluet
• Elegant Spreadwing

7-15-07 BPU (~15 minutes)

• Eastern Forktail
• ? Spreadwing
• Vesper Bluet
• Common Whitetail
• Unicorn Clubtail
• Eastern Pondhawk
• Eastern Amberwing
• Orange Bluet

The nature pilgrimage was great this year, but the best part of my weekend was not spent in a organized workshop, but at Red House Lake and a few Beaverponds. Here are my lists for the weekend.

6-1-2007 Red House Lake (picnic area by admin building)

• Aurora Damsel
• Eastern Forktail
• Common Sanddragon*
• Common Baskettail*
• Dusky Clubtail*
• Common Green Darner

6-2 France Brook Rd beaverpond

• Beaverpond Baskettail
• Beaverpond Clubtail
• Dot-tailed Whiteface
• Common Whitetail
• Eastern Forktail

6-2 ASP 2 Beaverpond

• Fragile Forktail
• Eastern Forktail
• Aurora Damsel
• Beaverpond Baskettail*
• Common Whitetail
• Dot-tailed Whiteface
• Common Green darner
• Beaverpond Clubtail *
• Unicorn Clubtail *
• Common Baskettail *
• Chalk-fronted Corpral *

6-2 Bova Ski Beaverpond (Drained within the last year)

• Beaverpond Baskettail
• Unicorn Clubtail
• Eastern Forktail
• Common Whitetail

* Denotes a specimen was taken

Bold denotes a species of “Greatest Conservation Need” for NY

The Common Sanddragon is currently only known from two rivers in the Adirondacks. I found it during the Nature Pilgrimage at Red House Lake. This was one of three lifers I got over the weekend! My other two lifers were the Beaverpond Baskettail and Clubtail. I also observed some other interesting ode behavior I will write about soon.

I had a nice morning walk at the Jamestown Audubon today. The first part of the morning I had fun looking for wildflowers with Jeff, one of their naturalists. He showed me a most beautiful Pink Ladies Slipper. After that I spent an hour looking for dragonflies. I got most of the usual ones for this time of year.

• Eastern Forktail
• Dot-tailed Whiteface
• Common Whitetail
• Widow Skimmer
• Sedge Sprite
• Slender Spreadwing
• 12-Spotted Skimmer
• Black Saddlebags
• Common Green Darner
• Fragile Forktail

I have been looking forward to sunny spring days all winter long. One of my many reasons was a smallish dragonfly called the Ebony Boghaunter (Williamsonia fletcheri). These are a rare dragonfly that are typically only seen in bogs. They are old dragonflies that are thought to be left over from a colder period before temperate forests moved north.

I invited Mon@rch to come along with me. I always enjoy have people much smarter than myself along. It save a lot of time in your field guide, and you learn all sorts of new things. As usual I was not disappointed. Tom is a wiz with birds, and had no problem blowing my mind by identifying them all with out even seeing them. He would hear a song and call out a name, then we would match a bird with its song. It always amazes me that I could walk by so many different types of birds and never know what I had missed. The warblers that we saw were so colorful. If I keep walking with Tom I might just give up the net for a pair of binoculars!

While the Allenburg Bog is a great place to hunt for dragonflies, I did not find my Boghaunter. It may have been too early in the season, or they may just not be there. It may have even been to early in the day as we left before noon. I will just have to keep looking another day. We did manage to scare up a Common Green Darner, my only ode species for the day.

A trip to the bog always gives a great wildflower show. I found my first blooming trillium and gold-thread for the year. We also saw Trout Lily and Spring Beauties. Lots of others have not started to bloom yet. I’ll leave you with a few shots.

Goldthread

Spring Beauties

Red Trillium