Posts in Category: dragonflies
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.
Dragonfly fake-out!
For my last field trip of the Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival in Carrington North Dakota, I went with a small van and a few people to explore the very edge of the drift prairies where they meet the Missouri Coteau…the terminal moraine of the last round of glaciers to scrub the area. They call the uplands there Hawk’s Nest Ridge, and it is a unique habitat in North Dakota: A tall hill or small mountain covered in Burr Oak forest. Until European settlers arrived on the prairies of North Dakota any trees were restricted to the deeper river valleys, right along the water…and the only real forest was found on the top of Missouri Coteau…where the Burr Oaks grow.
I was totally delighted to come to an open glade in the Burr Oaks and find it full of dragonflies. I can honestly say I have never seen as many of one species in any one place at any one time. There must have been a hundred of these bright golden, fair sized dragons working the bushes and low growth at the edge of the trees. There were also two Common Green Darners patrolling, and bunches of damsels and dancers in the grass. There was no hope for a shot of the Darners, but I tracked down a couple of the big golden guys who posed just long enough for some photography. I was excited. I was convinced that I was seeing something new to me.
So I got back to the hotel and processed the images in Lightroom. Still excited. Then I began to try to id the bugs. Oh. On closer look they were just Four Spotted Skimmers, one of the most abundant dragons around my home in southern Maine…the first dragon I photographed in Maine this year…and one that I have hundreds of images of already.
I was a little let down, I will admit. There in the clearing in the Burr Oak forest up on Hawk’s Nest Ridge the Missouri Coteau of North Dakota, with the skimmers all around me in the bright sunlight, I thought I really had something new. Four-spotted Skimmers! Who knew.
At the same time, having seen them in that number and in that light, I will never look at a Four-spotted Skimmer quite the same way again. They are a work of art, no matter how common.
Canon SX50HS with my usual tweaks to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. 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) 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.
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.
Thornbush Dasher: Estero Llano Grande TX
I was going through odonata withdrawal in Maine during November, so it was a pleasure to go the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas where the dragons and damsels were still flying. This was literally my first dragon of the trip. I was hoping it was a new species for me…but I photographed it last year in the Valley as well. It is a Thornbush Dasher, somewhat loosely related the to the common Blue Dasher found in New England and country wide (except for the Rocky Mountains)…but the Thornbush is restricted to Texas. I really like the bokeh on this shot!
Here is a Blue Dasher for comparison, taken only a moment later and a few steps further on.
Though they are very similar in superficial look, and share a “name”, a good back view or top view of the Thornbush shows it is not same kind of bug at all. Note the flare in the tail. Note too how the angle of the light turns the eyes in last photo a very Blue Dasher green. 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1) 2) and 3) 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320 and 800. 4) 1200mm equivalent. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Roseate Skimmer, Quinta Mazatlan
Between a week in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and a week in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, I have added over 1000 images to weiw.lightshedder.com. So, expect some catch up over the next few weeks as we move through Thanksgiving and into a few weeks in the home and Virginia offices. 🙂
This is a Roseate Skimmer, on of my favorite Dragonflies, from the grounds of Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen Texas. This, like many of the odonata I saw in the Valley, is a very worn bug…possibly a migrant from further north. There are winter texans…I suppose there are winter texan odonata.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Texas Black Saddlebags
Actually this might not be a resident Texas Black-saddlebags. BSBs are long distance migrants and this specimen looks well worn. It could conceivably even be one of the BSBs I saw emerge at my pond in Maine earlier this summer. Wouldn’t that be strange and wonderful.
The BSB is the single most abundant dragonfly I am seeing on this trip to Texas…even Wandering Glider is a distant second. There are BSBs everywhere I have been in the past 5 days, and in large numbers. Impressive.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Red-saddlebags At Last!
I have photographed Black Saddlebags in both Texas and Maine, and I have one really bad photo of a Carolina Saddlebags from my Kennebunk dragon pond this summer, but my ambition for this trip to south Texas and New Mexico was to find and photograph a Red Saddlebags. They don’t get as far north as Maine and a friend who posted a pic from NM said the last record for the upper Rio Grande Valley is sometime in September, so my only real hope was Texas.
My first day in Harlingen I got out to Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center…which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places for birding, bugging, and photography…and, sure enough, there were a smattering of Red Saddlebags among the abundant Blacks. I had, however, about given up on getting one to sit still for a photo when I found a little reed tip out by Grebe Marsh where one was returning with fair frequency. I watched it for fifteen minutes, missing it every time…it was in touch-and-go mode…but I made note of the location to check on my way back to the visitor center.
And there it was, on my way back, on the same reed tip…and this time it sat while I got a few shots, and then returned twice to the same perch for more shots at different angles. I was so blessed!
The perch was high, above eye-level, so the angle is not great…but still…a Red Saddlebags!
It, like the Blacks it was flying with, was a well worn bug…likely a migrant from further north mating one last time on its final journey south. (Some of the Blacks were tattered enough for me to believe I might have photographed the same bug a few months ago in Maine.)
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.
Blue-eyed Darner: Seattle WA
There were a lot of these Blue-eyed Darners in the Urban Bay Natural Area in Seattle. They were in the air along the edge of Lake Washington, and even more present weaving among the cattails in the lagoon on the other side of “the fill” (as the locals apparently call the reclaimed dump area). I came really close to getting a shot of one in the air…but eventually this specimen settled for a series of photos. It was well worn with tattered wings, but still beautiful with its turquoise eyes and pattern of abdomen spots. This dragonfly really does look like something crafted in a Southwestern Jewelry shop.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-converter function). f6.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. 2) 1200mm equivalent. f6.5 @ 1/320 @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.