Yesterday (18 July) afternoon I headed down back to the beaver-made wetland complex at the back of our property.
As I headed out, I got distracted by the butterflies on the flowers in the beds around the yard. I in the middle of photographing butterflies, I spent some time stalking a small orangeish dragonfly but I was not able to make a photo. After this dragonfly vanished for good, and as I was about to stand up to move on, I noticed that a small robberfly had landed on the perch last used by ode. Of course, I had to photograph it!
Eventually, I did wander down the hill to the natural habitat of the beaver pond and wet meadow.
New, since my last trip down back, was the presence of darners. I am not sure of the exact species. They were patrolling over both the pond and the wet meadow. The numbers were not large; I saw maybe half a dozen.
By far, the most common ode present were frosted whitefaces. They were mostly patrolling over the pond. However, every once in a while one would perch near me and I was able to make a photograph. The numbers were way down compared to my last visit (on 2 July, see this post).
I also observed two sprites (either sphagnum or sedge) deep down among the vegetation along the pond. Neither were able to be photographed.
Out over the meadow there were a small number of calico pennants. As with the frosted whitefaces, the number of pennants are way down from a couple of weeks ago. However the individuals present were all actively feeding. I watched (and photographed) one individual for about fifteen minutes. During that time, I watched it make dozens of hunting forays always returning to the same perch. It was successful on about half of its hunts.
[scrollGallery id=453 – autoscroll = false width = 600 height = 600 useCaptions = true]
Frank, I love your photos! They are amazing and inspiring.
Comment by Malin Clyde — 25 July 2016 @ 2:37 PM