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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Odonata at Westside Lake

This afternoon I stopped by Westside Lake to check out the bird activity. I only found a single wood duck in eclipse plumage, a pair of female mallards, and a female hooded merganser, but the dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) were abundant and attracted my attention.

In the time I spent there I saw no fewer than four dragonfly species, two of which I was able to photograph and identify. The first one is the eight-spotted skimmer (Libellula forensis), a species found west of the Rockies in the United States and Canada:


This one is the cardinal meadowhawk (Sympetrum illotum), distinct not only in color but for its perching posture in which it holds its wings forward instead out of out to the side. It wasn't until I looked closer at the picture at home that I realized there are naiads (nymphs) [EDIT: skins of damselflies - thanks Dave!] on the stalk of the plant under it - cool!! Now I want to go back and look closer at the real thing. (Click to see a larger view.)


Most abundant of all was a species of narrow-winged damselfly. I haven't been successful in narrowing it down to a species or even a genus - maybe someone with better resources or more knowledge of Odonata can help me identify it? Here is what appeared to be a mating pair on a blade of grass....though it looks to me like it's two males, since the females seemed to be a lot grayer? [EDIT: The females can come in two color morphs - thanks again Dave!]

6 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Hi Monika - what a beaut the 8-spot is! Our 4-spot is a dull and dowdy critter by comparison. Your red one would be called a 'darter' Sympetrum sp over here - looks a bit like Ruddy darter with that obvious club at hte end of the tail but dunno if you gey them over there. The damsels are a pair, the females of some species have two colour forms. Not one I'm familiar with bbut if there are several blue species the pattern on the segment behind the thorax can give you a clue - our two similar species have a tree or the Honda logo as a simple way of identifying them. Check the eye and leg colour too.

Cheers

Davo

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Hi Monika

Apols for typos earlier

Our Ruddy Darter is S.sanguinium if that helps.
The shed skins below the darter are from the damsels.

Cheers

Davo

Monika said...

Thanks for all the great info Dave. A lot of our local damsels have distinct patterns behind the thorax too - an exclamation point, or four dots, for example - but I wasn't really able to discern any of these markings. My dad's got a better field guide for Odonata of the region so I'm hoping he'll chime in!

Warren Baker said...

8 spotted Skimmer ! The best here is only 4 spots! Looks absolutely striking, love to see that flying -get the video out Monika :-)

The K said...

You're spot on with the dragonflies. The book I have doesn't cover damselflies much. But the Familiar Bluet looks like a match -- likes ponds more than streams. Sorry not much more help.

Monika said...

Warren - We also have a twelve spotted skimmer - I'll be on the lookout for that one! I'm not sure using video would be any easier than taking still photos of dragonflies...maybe I'll have to try it.