Seven

The summer flew by quickly due to a great many things. It seems like just a few days ago that the Boyo came home from his last day of first grade, now he's a seasoned second grader. Mom was just here rehabbing at Mayo, and it seems like Dad should be coming through the door at any time, back from visiting Mom.

I got just about nothing done from the list of things I wanted to accomplish over the summer. And since all of my September blogs are Odo-centric, I will say that one of the things I wanted to do this summer was to spend many, many days with the kiddos going dragonfly hunting.  I imagined long hours spent outside wandering to and fro, netting and photographing and studying.

The reality was that we went on only four or five "hunts", and those usually lasted around a half hour or less. No nets, just a camera and some sharp eyed kids. The other pictures were taken during fortuitous encounters in the front yard or out shooting rockets. Not actually on dedicated hunts.

I knew that odonates were pretty understudied, and that we may find an unrecorded species or two. What I was unprepared for was that on nearly every short walk, we discovered a county record. Even when we went a county over, we managed to get two records on the same day.

Today was no different. After church, I invited a friend and his daughter to come on a hunt with us at a local nature preserve. She is about the Boyo's age, and is quite the little spitfire. The last time I went to this spot, I only saw Widow Skimmers, Eastern Forktails and some sort of Meadowhawk that I couldn't get close to.

Today we saw a couple of Eastern Forktails, and then I got some shots of these...

sitting on a leaf...

Paired up for mating...

Mating wheel...

I knew they were Meadowhawks, but they were so skittish I couldn't get close enough for really good shots. When I got home, I checked them out in my Dragonfly ID book and it seems that they are pictures of Autumn Meadowhawks (Sympetrum vicinum). I submitted them to the Odonata Central website and they have been confirmed! That makes County Record number Seven!

So, to recap -
#1 - Band-winged Meadowhawk...

was our first find. The boyo spotted her right in our garden in our front yard! That was on July 31st.

#2 - Eastern Forktail...

a very common species, but strangely not yet recorded here. We added it to the list on August 11th.

#3 - Black Saddlebags...

Another visitor to the front yard garden, and starting off a very busy September on the 6th of that month.

#4 - Tule Bluet...

On a walk with my Sweet Pea the next day, September 7th, when she noticed this little sapphire in the bushes.

#5 - Black Saddlebags...

again. But this time in a different county. September 12th, visiting a playground with the Sweet Pea.

#6 - Eastern Forktail...

Same day, September 12th. There were quite a few other species there that day, but I couldn't get close enough to get good shots of them.

#7 - Autumn Meadowhawk...

Just today.

The season may not be over yet, either. I don't know if we'll find other county records this year. But I sure am motivated to get out next spring and see what we can find around here!

Of interest to me was the rediscovery of this picture...

I don't know what kind it is, a clubtail of some sort obviously. But it does stand as my first picture of a dragonfly that I took. This picture was taken in China almost exactly a year ago, on September 20th, 2010.  Who knew that a few days over a year later we would have seven county records to our name!  Fun stuff.

More Later