Well… At the rate I am working it might take years to get these critters identified. This is clearly not my strong point!
Thus, I am just going to post the photos… check back at some point if you really care about the names.
UPDATE: Last evening, Joan spent some time with Paulson’s book and Odonata Central. She has IDs for all of the photos… blame her if they are wrong!!! 😉
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Yesterday was a perfect mid-September day weather-wise. Thus, when I got home from work, the urge to meander the neighborhood was irresistible.
There were not many odes about. I saw a couple of spreadwings, a couple of darners and a half a dozen or so Autumn Meadowhawks while meandering.
I also encountered three or four very small (thumbnail-size) toads or frogs. Fun to watch but impossible to photograph well… I tried without success. These critters are rarely in the open, preferring instead to hide in the grass or under small pieces of wood. They are very wary. Once you have located one, you can easily watch one for minutes… if you stand very still. However, any small movement and they take one or two hops which leaves you search again for a very well hidden amphibian on the forest floor. I know… excuses, excuses!
There were, however, dozens of wasps on the goldenrod and eight or ten monarchs on the flowers around the perimeter of Joan’s vegetable garden. None of these seemed to mind my making photographs while they went about their business.
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Today was a beautiful early fall day and I could not resist the urge to wander down to “our” beaver swamp late this afternoon.
Noticing all of the nice clouds, I tossed my wide angle lens and polarizing filter in my pocket as I headed out the door. Thus, I can actually show those who have not (yet) been here a photo of the place where I have whiled away many enjoyable hours in pursuit of odes over the past two summers.
The ode season is definitely winding down here. There were a dozen or so large odes (darners, most likely) aloft out over the meadow and I watched a couple of female darners ovipositing at the edge of the pond. I noted two or three spreadwings along the edge of the woods and that was about it… except for one rare opportunity that I caught!
Darners are large, spectacular dragonflies that are frustrating to photograph… they rarely perch! However, every once in a great awhile one finds them perched and you get an opportunity!
I was wandering slowly along the edge of the meadow when I flushed a darner mating wheel out of the grass. This is a fairly rare, maybe two or three times a summer, event in itself. Usually the pair flies off and that’s it. You loose track of them, they land high up in a tree or you flush them a second time trying to get a good angle photographically, et cetera, et cetera. Or as Joan would say… “excuses, excuses”!
This time the mating pair landed about ten feet up on the trunk of a nearby tree; a little high to be ideal but one takes what nature provides. I took the extension tube off the 70-300 mm lens and was able photograph them for twenty-five minutes (according to the meta-data). The show ended when the couple parted ways; presumably she headed to the pond to begin ovipositing. They are either Canada Darners or Green-striped Darners… I can’t decide. [UPDATE: Thanks to my friend Kevin and the helpful folks on the Northeast Odonates mailing list (who all agree), we can say that these are Canada Darners.]
I wandered for another hour or so before the sun dipped below the ridge and I headed home. In that interval, I saw a couple more spreadwings ,always at the edge of the woods, and a few grasshoppers among the marsh grasses.
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Thursday, Joan and I took the kayaks down to the lake for a quick paddle on a nice quiet evening. I headed under the bridge to the swampy northern section just to see what I could find.
Not more than a minute after I got the camera ready, I spied a pair of spreadwings flying in tandem. I watched as they landed on the stem of an isolated aquatic plant in good evening light. I quickly moved in and positioned myself to get a clear shot with a an uncluttered background; all the while thinking what a great shot this was going to be. I tripped the shutter a single time and off they flew never to be seen again. Total time from first seeing them until losing them… two minutes at the absolute most. And the photo? It was out of focus. Missed opportunities, a common theme in the life of a wildlife photographer!
I paddled along the edge of the lake staying to the ever changing patches of “good light” as the sun dipped lower with each passing minute. There were a number of green frogs taking advantage of the warm sun. There were small numbers of spreadwings and Eastern Forktails present as well.
At one point, I flushed a great blue heron from the edge of the marsh. I was barely fifty feet away when she/he took off and I was glad that she/he was not directly over me when they lightened their load shortly after takeoff! Since the camera was rigged with an extension tube for closeup work (and thus only focuses to about six feet) I could only watch the magnificent sight… another missed opportunity!
Eventually the sun dipped below the ridge and I headed back to the boat launch. Upon my arrival there I noticed the rapidly changing patterns in the clouds. Photographing the clouds kept me fully entertained while waiting for Joan to return.
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Yesterday, I spent about 90 minutes in the late afternoon down in the swamp at the back of our property. I went specifically to look for the male spreadwings that would “match” the females which have been common in the woods for the past few weeks.
Often, the males of a species will head back to the water (where mating and ovipositing will take place) earlier than the females. Thus, having seen only females in the woods, I thought that maybe the males would be at the pond in the swamp. I thought incorrectly since there were no spreadwings at all and essentially no damsels of any kind. I photographed one male damsel and caught a glimpse of a second; that was it.
There were small numbers of large dragonflies (darners of some sort) cruising their territories above the pond and the meadow. However, as usual, I saw none perched.
Along the margins of the swamp (where meadow meets woods) I found a number (may a dozen total) of autumn meadowhawks of both sexes.
In between odes, I discovered (and photographed) two different types of grasshoppers.
Lastly, I found two groups of asters in bloom… a sure sign that fall is on the way.
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Both kids were here for a visit over the weekend; a rare treat for us. Thus, I did not get time for any photographic “expeditions”. There were, however, a number of interesting visitors to Joan’s garden and its immediate surroundings which I did manage to photograph.
The black swallowtail caterpillars (there are three or four of them) have been hanging around the garden for a week or more. They have more-or-less wiped out the dill (apparently well known as a favorite of theirs) and have moved on to the parsley.
The painted ladies were abundant on Saturday; sometimes I could see five or six from a single vantage point. They were actively nectaring on the flowers that encircle the garden.
The gray tree frog, which was sitting on the Swiss chard, is a rare visitor; neither Joan nor I had ever seen one before. Apparently they are not particularly rare; see: http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/Nongame/frogs/frog_graytreefrog.htm.
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Note the new method of displaying photographs in this post. Any opinions on this “style” compared to the usual one?
I got a couple of hours “in the field” both Tuesday afternoon and this afternoon. The light has been good starting at about four and it has been lasting until roughly six.
Over the two afternoons, I got about a dozen “keepers” that I would usually show here; mostly odes, but a few other subjects as well.
However, sometimes one frame just stands out from the rest.
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On the weekend, I grabbed a bit of time to photograph; both around the yard and by the lake at camp. The number and variety of odes seemed small but they were around.
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Yesterday morning the neighborhood kids arrived carrying a small stick bearing an interesting story… I guess that we have developed a reputation!!
While I was photographing (see the first image below), Joan was Googling and discovered that what the kids had discovered was a hornworm bearing cocoons of a braconid wasp. We all learned something!
Later in the day, I spent a couple of hours down at the beaver swamp at the back of our property; I had not been down there for more than a month.
Again, it seemed that the number and variety of odes were small. There were a few large darners cruising the meadow and small numbers of female spreadwings at the edge of the pond. The most common odes were meadowhawks at the margins of the swamp.
However, there were still some interesting stories to capture and I came home wet and happy!
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Late yesterday (Friday) afternoon Joan and I put the kayaks in at Rye Pond in Stoddard. This small, shallow pond is part of a Harris Center parcel. It has a well-traveled (for this part of the world anyway) road along one edge but is still quite pleasant.
The weather was sunny and rather warm. There was a very gusty breeze blowing. The breeze probably limited the numbers of odes that were out and about and it certainly made for difficult photography. It is rather difficult to frame and focus while being blown about in ones boat! That said, we still had a pretty successful outing.
One area of the pond has extensive floating bogs and, as is typical, there were many interesting plants to be found in this ecological niche.
We stayed out until there was no more direct sunlight on the water and it was 8:30 PM by the time we got the boats back on the truck.
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Yesterday afternoon was sunny with the temperature in the mid-70’s… perfect weather for odes. Looking to explore a ecological niche different from the lake or beaver swamp that I usually haunt, I headed for the Contoocook River to “hunt”.
My first stop was the Powder Mill Pond WMA in Greenfield; this site is above the dam but at the far end of the “pond”, just where the water narrows back down The water level was very low.
The variety of species in a very small area was quite remarkable.
Along the river banks (the first three photos were taken here), there were numerous chalk-fronted corporals cruising the area. There were also many skimming bluets right at the waters edge.
I saw a single twelve-spotted skimmer. I stalked it for quite some time but I did not get a photograph because I never saw it come lower than about eight feet off the ground. It was perched on a pine bough maybe twenty five feet up the last time I saw it.
A short (maybe 500 feet) walk from the river is a meadow off the parking lot where the next three photos were taken. While I was concentrating on the lancet clubtail, I noticed some movement off to the side. I turned to see a male widow skimmer (which I had never seen before) perched on a stalk of grass. I was able to grab a single frame before it flew off. Alas, I was too close (within the close focus distance of my lens + extension tube) and the photo was not sharp. I guess that I’ll need to head back there again soon and continue the hunt!
The last four photos were taken at my second stop, a slow moving part of the river below the dam at the paper mill in Bennington. The stream bluets were fairly common and there were small numbers of female river jewelwings; I did not see any males. I also saw (but did not photograph) a few dragonflies (probably slaty skimmers) along the edge of the paper mills’ lawn.
On the way home I stopped by the Tenney’s Farm for what are probably the last of the strawberries for the season. We had them for dessert over vanilla ice cream after dinner. Yum!
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