Posts in Category: Odonata
Tickled. Happy Sunday!
So, I have been in Virginia for a week of marketing meetings, with limited photo opportunities. I got a very itchy shutter button finger! First thing Saturday morning I gassed up my scooter and headed out for a photoprowl. First stop, the Kennebunk Plains to check the Blazing Star bloom…more on that one day soon…and then on to Old Falls Pond and the stretch of the Mousam River there to check for dragonflies, etc. etc.
At Old Falls Pond I was delighted to find a stand of Cardinal Flower. I am pretty sure I have never seen it in Maine before, though it was common in the Southwest when I lived there. I find that it is actually native to the East Coast, from Canada to Florida. The southwest variety is a different species, though essentially the same flower. It is, of course, a stunning plant. In the right habitat it is both tall and showy, and there is nothing in nature quite so red as the red of the blooms. I was on my way over to the stand, which was right on the edge of the river, with my camera all set to macro, when I saw the Slaty Skimmers and Blue Dashers buzzing around it. Wouldn’t it be perfect, I thought, as I drew closer, if a dragonfly landed on the Cardinal lower…and just then a Slaty Skimmer did! Of course I had the wrong camera in hand, and the wrong setting on the camera I had. By the time I fumbled through menus and got the setting changed, the bug was gone. There is one good thing about Slaty Skimmers (all Skimmers) though. They return to a favored perch many times. I got the camera set (I did not dare to take time to get out my long zoom…and I was really too close anyway…so I stuck with the Samsung Smart Camera’s limited reach), and the dragonfly did indeed return and pose on the Cardinal Flower for a few shots. After I had my shots, I got out the Canon SX50HS, but, though I waited 10 minutes, and returned to the stand of Cardinal Flowers on my way back upstream and waited some more, the Slaty Skimmer never perched on the flowers again.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. Macro focus setting. 416mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 d@ 1/90th @ ISO 400. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Google Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday thought: I sometimes think our creator God has to enjoy the delight we show when we are surprised by the unlikely beauty of moments like a Slaty Skimmer perched on Cardinal Flower beside a stream in Southern Maine. These things happen too often to be any kind of accident. And though I do go out consciously and eagerly looking for them, I would not do that without some measure of confidence, based on past experience, that they do happen…that it is reasonable and right to go looking for them. Cardinal Flowers. Blue dragonflies. What kind of theory of randomness would bring them together just as I walked up with a camera in hand? And yet…there it is!
And, honestly, what can you be if not thankful? Okay God. Yes, you got me again. Tickled me good. Thank you.
And doesn’t most of the fun in tickling, belong to the tickler?
Dynamic Duo!
Like Batman and Robin, only Odonata style! The Twelve Spotted Skimmer and the Widow Skimmer are by far the most common of the larger dragonflies in southern Maine this summer. They both showed up early, and have maintained very high numbers through the season. I know some of the towns here in Maine sell dragonfly nymphs as “mosquito control”, and it looks to me that this year most of the nymphs sold were 12spots and widows. 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Backed off from full zoom so I could get both bugs in the shot, but still on 1.5x digital tel-extender. Maybe 1400mm equivalent. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom.
Decorated Leaf
The light was lovely by the time I got to the little pond by the office on Tuesday after work and the dragonflies were out in Virginia numbers…lots of Amberwings and more Blue Dashers than you see at three such ponds in Maine. On the other hand that was about it. There were a couple of Slaty Skimmers, but no other “large” flies. Still we takes what we can gets 🙂
This Blue Dasher posed nicely and I love the light in the leaves…in especially like how the dasher is cupped by the light.
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with my usual modifications. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
Green Eyed Monster!
The theme is green on MacroMonday, and I happened to photograph this green eyed monster on green leaves yesterday at one of my local dragonfly ponds. It is a teneral dragonfly…one that has only just emerged from its last larval form, and this is not how it will look in a few days. I think it is one of three very similar smallish red Meadowhawks that we have here…White-faced, Cherry-faced, or Ruby. Impossible to tell at this stage. Whatever it is, there were a lot of them at the pond yesterday.
Canon SX50HS. My usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Calico Pennant Dragonfly
The Calico Pennant is among the most attractive dragonflies we have in Maine. It is not very big, but the combination of wing patterns and the brightly marked body make it sure to catch your eye when it is around. I have only seen two in Maine so far, and both of them in almost exactly the same spot at one of my dragonfly ponds…though last year’s Calico was not until August, and this one was in June. I particularly like the bokeh in this shot! It is simply a beautiful image…going well beyond an image of a bug!
Canon SX50HS with my usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom.
Here’s looking at you: Swamp Spreadwing
After days of rain, on Saturday afternoon we had a burst of sunshine…and promising enough skies so I got the scooter out and did a round of all the local dragonfly and damselfly ponds. It was bug city! And, from the amount of mating activity I saw, the odonata tribe was making up for lost time. I took lots of pics, but I can’t resist posting this one…it just makes me smile. 🙂
It is a Swamp Spreadwing…one of the larger damselflies. They were out in numbers at one of the ponds that feed Back Creek along Route 9 in Kennebunk.
Canon SX50HS. My usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent (1200 optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f6.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
They’re Back!
It has been a long (snowy) winter and a late spring in southern Maine, but the Odonata are finally returning in numbers and variety to our ponds and streams. A few really (unseasonably) warm days last week warmed the waters to the point that dragon and dameselflies are emerging daily now.
This is an extreme tel-macro shot (2400mm) of an immature male Common Whiteface (Plathemis lydia)Â from the sunny parking area at Old Falls on the Mousam River.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, sharpness, and some noise reduction.
Neo-tropic Bluet: NBC, TX
The National Butterfly Center (formerly the North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Gardens) south of Mission Texas is, of course, a world-class destination for lepidopterist, but it is also an excellent spot to observe and photograph Odonata…dragonflies and damselflies. According to one of the locals, this is most likely a Neo-tropic Bluet, relatively rare in the Rio Grande Valley, but then, rarities is what the NBC is all about. 
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 6 feet. f6.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Variegated Meadowhawk, Estero Llano Grande TX
The Variegated Meadowhawk is a widely distributed dragonfly across much of North America. It breeds in a wide variety of habitats, and it flies both early in the season and late, so it is very likely that you have seen it somewhere before. According to the books it is a bit shy of people, but where I see them in numbers, they are relatively easy to approach.
This is a tel-macro, taken at full zoom plus 2x Digital Tel-Converter function (2400mm equivalent field of view) from just about the closest focus distance (4.5 feet) on the Canon SX50HS. I especially like the bright weathered wood of the boardwalk contrasted with the water, which is thrown completely black by the bright foreground.
f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Pin-tailed Pondhawk: Estero Llano Grande TX
I suppose one of things that has caught my interest (and held it so far) about dragonflies and damselflies is that suddenly I have a whole lot more to learn…and…a high likelihood of finding something totally new on each outing. It is getting harder and harder for me to get life birds…birds I have never seen before (not because I have seen so many of the possible birds in North America, but just because I have seen most of the common ones :). I can get, however, a life odonata at almost any pond and on just about every trip! What fun.
This is a Pin-tailed Pondhawk from Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center in Weslaco Texas. It was one of several species flying on the November day when I visited. We don’t have Pin-tails in Maine. We have lot of Eastern Pondhawks, and Easterns were flying in Texas with the Pin-tails, but this black furry Pondhawk was a new species for me that day. What fun!
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.