Yesterday (Sunday, 12 Jul), Joan and I made a hot, sunny trip (of about three miles round trip) on the Connecticut River in Claremont, NH.
Joan was on a rare plant hunt for NEWFS. I, of course, was interested in big river odes!
Joan did not find the plants she was looking for. I watched two teneral dragonflies drown!
The most common ode we saw were, I believe, powdered dancers. Most were single males patrolling out over the river. But I did see four or five pairs ovipositing in a small patch of emergent vegetation. I have no photos of them since it is simple not possible to make photos at high magnification while sitting in a boat on a relatively fast moving river. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
At one point, I noticed a odd fluttering movement on some emergent vegetation at the rivers edge. I headed over to discover a damaged and teneral dragonfly. I pulled my boat ashore and spent some time observing and photographing this “fellow” (see the first three photos below). Twice, while I watched, the wake of a passing boat washed the critter off the stem it was holding but each time it climbed back up. Notice the crumpled wing, despite much fluttering of wings at times, I suspect that this individual was never going to fly and was, thus, doomed.
After some minutes of my watching this individual, Joan came along and pointed out another teneral dragonfly about ten feet further upstream from the first. I headed over to photograph the second individual who was clinging to a stem of grass within inches of the water (see the second three photos below).
After a few minutes of photographing this new individual, another boat (with its concomitant wake) went by and washed it off its perch; the current carried it quickly downstream. I went back to the place I first stopped and, alas, there was only a very soggy clump of vegetation to be found.
I packed up the ode rig and headed on upstream to the spot where Joan was searching for plants on the back. I beached the boat and began to hunt unsuccessfully for a powdered dancer to photograph. I did, however, find a small number of very nondescript brown damselflies which I think are female dusky dancers. At one point Joan came by bearing a small piece of vegetation to which an exuvia was clinging. I was able to prop this up between two river stones and make a nice photo of it as well.
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Great arrow clubtail shots and especially the exuvia which seems perched on Equisetum sp.. I think the exuvia is a darner but will have to key it.
The wake of boats is a definite problem for emerging clubtails on rivers with heavy boat traffic. This was the subject of a paper at the Northeast Odes Conference in Athol, MA many years ago.
Comment by Kevin — 13 July 2015 @ 9:14 PM
Well documented final minutes of that ode! I saw the deformed wing.
Those tenerals #1, #2, and #3 are extremely well captured. They looked spot on from end to end!
Comment by Joe Kennedy — 14 July 2015 @ 4:27 PM
Hi Frank,
very beautiful, Nice shot
Regards
Oleg .Russia
Comment by Oleg — 16 July 2015 @ 12:52 AM