Photographs by Frank

22 June 2018

McCabe Forest

Filed under: Forest Society Properties,Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer — Tags: — Frank @ 10:00 PM

This afternoon, I headed to the Forest Society’s McCabe Forest to see what might be up ode-wise along the Contoocook River. My usual haunts are all still water ponds or lakes. It is good to try a new habitat every once in a while! The temperature was in the mid-70’s F, it was mostly sunny and essentially calm.

What was lacking in terms of variety at this site was made up in terms of quantity. Early on in my walk a observed a single teneral drab brown damselfly down low in a sunny patch of grass. As I neared the river, I began to see ebony jewelwings. There were dozens of them. both males and females were present. They were in the sunny patches along the trail which stays in the uplands immediately adjacent to the river. Some were right along the river’s edge. Some were flying out over the river and perching on the floating vegetation. Interestingly, there I saw no odes in the tall grasses of the flood plain (which is quite dry given our lack of rain in recent weeks) between the uplands and the water.

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Slow Day at Loverens Mill

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Nature Conservancy properties,Odontates,Summer,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 9:30 PM

Yesterday I headed to the Nature Conservancy’s Loverens Mill preserve. Joan had been there earlier in the week and said that she had seen ebony jewelwings and “green-eyed dragonflies” (emeralds, perhaps?) there. The temperature was in the mid-70’s F, it was partly cloudy and essentially calm.

It was a slow ode day. I saw exactly four damselflies (and no dragonflies) in the first couple of hours I was there: two ebony jewelwings and two drab brown teneral damsels (probably bluets of some sort). The drab brown individuals were the only odes I saw during my three trips along the boardwalk in the swamp proper.

Things picked up a little bit when I walked the road. There were a few more brown damsels and, about three hours after I left the truck, I saw a single dragonfly, an immature male slaty skimmer.

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20 June 2018

Hattie Brown Road

Filed under: Amphibians,Birds,Mammals,Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:11 PM

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk up Hattie Brown Road. This old (and now gated) road leads to an old homestead but is used mainly for logging access these days. On its way up to the old foundation (which is roughly a mile from Craig Road) , the road passes a beaver pond and a fairly new (i.e. still grassy, not brushy) log yard. Both are good spots for odes.

The weather was ideal; the temperature was in the low 70s F, the skies were azure blue and there was a bit of a gusty breeze blowing.

At every sunny spot on the road there were chalk-fronted corporals, often a dozen or more in one patch of sunlight. I saw literately hundreds of individuals, in total.

In addition to the corporals, I saw a half dozen Hudsonian whitefaces, mostly maturing (i.e. turning from yellow to red) males, two or three teneral frosted whitefaces (along the edge of the beaver pond), a single four-spotted skimmer (in the woods near the old foundation) and a single spreadwing (in the beaver pond).

I also saw a single darner of some sort. It perched briefly on a stem of grass along the road by the beaver pond. However, the weight of the insect, its sail-like wings and the wind conspired against me making its photo. It was swaying back and forth so vigorously that I could not keep the critter in the viewfinder, much less focus on it!

It was also a good day for seeing non-ode animals. I saw a both tiger swallowtails and pipevine swallowtails; a few of each type. I also found a small (first joint of your thumb-sized) toad at the edge of the road in the woods and a painted turtle (a female wanting to lay eggs?) in the middle of the road a few dozen yards up hill from, and pointed away from, the beaver pond.

I also saw an indigo bunting at the edge of the log yard. It hung around long enough so that I could remove the extension tube from between camera and lens. Although with only 300 mm of magnification available, the resulting photos are merely record shots.

Lastly, I observed a young deer in a small sunny patch on a skid road leading off of the main road. If was maybe fifty feet from me, but it did not hang around long enough for me to even contemplate removing the extension tube this time.

All-in-all are very good few hours of wildlife observation!

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18 June 2018

First Time “Down Back” This Season

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 2:00 AM

Sunday afternoon I donned my waders and headed down to the beaver-made pond and wet meadow at the back of our property. I spent three hours (from about 3 PM to 6 PM) there photographing odes. The temperature was in the mid 80’s F, it was mostly sunny and calm.

The most abundant odes, by far, were frosted whitefaces of both sexes; there were dozens of individuals present. They were flying over both the open water of the pond and over the meadow, I also observed two mating wheels of this species.

There were also small numbers of hudsonian whitefaces (males only) and four-spotted skimmers. I watched (and photographed) a skimmer make a dozen or more hunting forays over about 10 minutes. It always returned to the same perch between flights and it was quite successful, catching prey about two-thirds of the time.

The most abundant damselfly was the sedge sprite (mostly males). I observed roughly a dozen individuals, a few down low in the wet meadow, but most in the tall grass where the meadow meets the woods. I also saw a couple of bluets (at different times and locations); one male and one female.

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15 June 2018

Yesterday’s Photos

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,wildflowers — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:00 AM

Yesterday morning I headed out to run some errands — I needed a birthday present for the boss — of course, I took my camera.

On my way home I stopped to look for odes at the boat launch on the Contoocook in Greenfield. The weather was cool and blustery and the odes were few. I did make an interesting photo of a small moth trying to stay out of the wind.

I also took a walk up the rail bed from Elmwood Junction to the bridge across Powdermill Pond. Here there were small numbers of odes about, mainly chalk-fronted corporals. The find of the day was a teneral female black-shouldered spinylegs drying out on a fern about five or six feet from the water.

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12 June 2018

Lady Slippers

Filed under: Audubon Sanctuaries,Monadnock Region,Spring,wildflowers — Tags: — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Mid-June is peak season for lady slippers here in the Monadnock region.  These showy flowers are fairly rare and, at most sites where they grow, the number of individual plants is, in my experience, small. However, along the Mill Pond trail at New Hampshire Audubon’s Willard Pond Sanctuary there is a “grove” consisting of dozens of these plants in a relatively small area. Yesterday afternoon, I payed a visit to this wonderful spot to make a few photographs.

These flowers are growing under a relatively heavy canopy which creates dappled sunlight. I spent some time crawling around on my hands an knees looking for the right combination of light on a flower and relatively dark background. (All of these photos are in natural light.)

At one point during my crawl, I noticed how many of the leaves around are coated in pine pollen; as is my truck. (Mid-June is flowering time for our pine trees as well.) I took a short break from the flowers at one point when I noticed “nice light” on a pollen covered basswood leaf.

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10 June 2018

Four Species in Twelve Feet

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Spring,wildflowers — Tags: , — Frank @ 7:00 PM

During my walk this morning, I stopped at a sunny spot along a forest road to see what odes were present. Sunny spots in a wooded landscape are “hot spots” that concentrate odes.

The road is roughly eight feet wide and the sunny spot was roughly twelve feet long.

I was able to photograph four species of dragonflies in the small area: hudsonian whiteface, chalk-fronted corporal, racket-tailed emerald and one that I have not identified yet*. There were small numbers (3-6) individuals of the first two species and single individuals of the last two species in this small patch of sunlight.

As it was yesterday, chalk-fronted corporals were abundant along the road with small numbers of hudsonian whitefaces also present.

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* An immature male frosted whiteface. Thanks to Nick et al. from the NEOdes mailing list for the ID.

 

8 June 2018

Small Critters

Filed under: Amphibians,Odontates,Other Insects,Spring,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 10:30 PM

This morning, after an absence of almost two weeks*, I took a walk up the unmaintained section of Brimstone Corner Road just to see what was around.

Ode-wise, the most common species were still the “early birds”… Hudsonian whitefaces (yellow individuals only) and chalk-fronted corporals (of both sexes). The numbers were small about six whitefaces and a dozen corporals in the three miles I walked.

I also observed a single brown-grey damselfly (probably a female bluet of some sort) and a female racket-tailed emerald.

There were a number of other small critters about. That is, besides the black flies and the mosquitoes (although neither of these were present in numbers large enough to be bothersome). I saw two red efts and a small (about the length of the first joint of my thumb) wood frog. Small numbers of at least three species of butterflies and one moth were also out and about.

Plant-wise, the spring ephemerals (trillium, etc.) are gone but a number of small summer flowers are in bloom or just about to open up.

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* I spent ten days in Maryland visiting my mother who is in a rehab facility after breaking both a wrist and a hip.

 

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