Posts in Category: dragonflies
Springtime Darner
The is nothing quite like the excitement of your first Odonata sighting of the spring! Dragonfly on the wing!
Okay. I get it. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for dragonflies and damselflies, but still, you must have some empathy with a seasonal first…the first Robin in the yard…the first crocus…Lilacs blooming…the first bike ride of the spring…opening day at the golf club? Something must tickle your seasonal nose like the first sneeze of hay fever season! For me, these past few years, it has been the awakening of the Odonates. I haunt the ponds and pools where I have seen them past summers, hoping against hope, that the water is finally warm enought, that the hours of sunlight long enough, so that some brave nymph will crawl out of the water and transform into a full flying dragon or damsel. Yesterday, a visit to the warm, sunlit meadows along the Boston River at Emmons Preserve in rural Kennebunkport had its rewards. I saw three dragons on the wing…got decent photos of two…and both of those were new bugs for me! It does not get much better than that!
This is the Springtime Darner (appropriately named 🙂 . I had some difficulty identifying it as it looks like a Mosaic Darner…but is in a totally different part of the book. It is also a tendril…a freshly emerged bug…so it’s blue abdominal spots are not as blue as they will be tomorrow. (Visually, they were bluer than in the photo.)
These are also among my first dragonfly shots with my new wildlife rig…the Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. That is 600mm equivalent that I can push to 1200mm using the Digital Tel-converter in the camera, as I did here. I am used to the much longer zoom on the Canon SX50HS, which started at 1200mm optical, with digital extension to 1800 and 2400mm equivalents. Still, I am hoping the increased image quality of the larger sensor in the Olympus Micro-four-thirds camera will more than make up for the extra effort of getting closer (when I can get closer). I am certainly happy with this shot.
1/640th @ ISO 640 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
California Darners!
It is still, possibly, weeks before the first real Dragonfly hatch in Southern Maine. I will get out to check the ponds today. I did, however, get my first dragonfly fix of the season in California this past week with this pair of what I make to be California Darners from Arcata Marsh Wildlife Center. Fine specimens and the first test of my new camera rig on dragonflies. I think it might work : )
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. At least 2 of these use the 2x digital extender for 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/800th @ f6.7 @ various ISO. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Roseate Skimmer. Happy Sunday!
On Friday I joined the Bayou LA Batre field trip at the Alabama Coastal Birding Festival. We visited several birdy locations in the Bayou La Batre area. I posted an illustrated trip report on gobirding.us. One of the highlights of the trip for me was the number of dragonflies bunched up along the coast as they migrate south for the winter. There were more Black Saddlebags than I have ever seen in one place at one time, a few Red Saddlebags, Green Darners (of course), and lots of Wandering Gliders. The best for me though, were the dozens of Roseate Skimmers I found in a drainage ditch along one of the roads we walked while looking for birds. We don’t get Roseares in Maine. I have only seen them in Texas up to this trip. Lovely bugs!
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday Thought. With my growing interest in dragonflies added to my interest in butterflies it is becoming obvious that I no longer fit the traditional birder mold. On the Bayou La Batre field trip, I spent as much time looking at and photographing dragonflies and butterflies as I did looking at and photographing birds. I often found myself way behind the group as I was waylaid by an interesting bug. On the long (or short).stretches of trail or roadside between birds and likely birding spots, while the real birders truged and chatted, only half paying attention, I was still on full alert, checking out every bug I came across. I am sure some of the real birders in the group got tired of my pointing out Saddlebags and Skimmers, Fritillaries and Long-tailed Skippers. One lady asked if I were more of an entomologist than a birder. I had to explain that my interest in birds was a keen as ever, but I supposed it was fair to say that I was becoming more of a general naturalist, with interests in bugs and reptiles and wildflowers and trees…with the whole living world. If makes me the odd man out on birding field trips, so be it. If they are not interested in the Roseate Skimmers in the drainage ditch, it is their loss. 🙂
To me it is the natural continuation of the outward turn that birding is part of. Once you get your eyes of yourself and your inner drama, and focused on the wonder and variety of the Creation that we are emersed in, even if you begin, as many do, with birds, how do you stop there? Why would you stop there? There is so much to see and so much to learn. For the naturalist, there is, literally, never a dull moment in the field.
And if, like me, your interest is, in fact, your offering to the Creator God, an act of worship and fellowship, then certainly you would not want to miss the Roseate Skimmers in the ditch.
Happy Sunday!
Spot-winged Glider
The Wandering Glider, a close relative of this Spot-winged Glider, is the dragonfly with the widest distribution worldwide of any odonata species. Still the two gliders I have been able to photograph in Maine have both been Spot-wings. 🙂
This appears to be a very fresh specimen. The pattern on the abdomen will quickly fade. As it is it is certainly a striking bug.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Program and Macro focus. With Intelligent Zoom to reach about 700mm equivalent at 10mp. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Eye-candy! Clamp-tipped Emerald
This is one those encounters that keeps me looking for and at dragon and damselflies. I will never become an Odonata expert. There is just too much to learn, but I totally enjoy photographing the species I find around home and in my travels. This is, I am pretty sure, the Clamp-tipped Emerald. There are lots of Emerald Dragonflies…all with the characteristic green eyes. According to Odonata Central, the Clamp-tipped is not recorded for York County Maine, so I am going to have to check my ID, but the male appendages on this bug are pretty distinctive, and everything else about it is right.
Whatever it is though, it is certainly an amazing creature. And it does not hurt that it chose to perch among the red berries either! Emmons Preserve (Kennebunk Land Trust) in Kennebunkport Maine.
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent field of view from about 8 feet…handheld. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
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.
Halloween Pennant
I have been looking for a Halloween Pennant for several years now. I mean, who could see them in the dragonfly guides and not want to see one, and photograph one, in real life. They are at the extreme north east of their range here on the coast in Southern Maine, but they are listed on the Odonata Central list for York County. I had hope. But I had no bug! Until last weekend when I found a single specimen at Roger’s Pond along the Mousam River in Kennebunk. Roger’s Pond is not nearly as productive as the Quest Ponds when it comes to Odonata, but I have found several dragons and a few damsels there that I have yet to see anywhere else.
I went back yesterday on my lunch-hour scooter prowl, and there was a second Halloween Pennant…this time in better light and closer, perching on the tallest stalks left in the mowed margin of the pond instead of on rushes out in the water. I know it is a second specimen because the first I saw was slightly worn…with an obvious notch out of one wing, and the colors somewhat faded. Yesterday’s bug was fresh and spectacular. What more could any odonatate ask for. (Yes, in my secret life, I an the Odonatator! 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Hand-held of course. Transferred to my Samsung Galaxy S4 via the RavPower WiFi disk and card reader, and then processed in PicSay Pro. (I am getting ramped up to spend two weeks in Europe without my laptop.)
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.