Posts in Category: dragonflies
Slaty Skimmer
Another very common dragonfly all over southern Maine, but especially at the ponds on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area: Slaty Skimmer. Not the most attractive dragon, and very similar to the much more showy (at least in flight) Spangled Skimmer with which it shares habitat. Still, it has an understated elegance all its own. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Calico Pennant
The Calico Pennant is another of my favorite dragonflies. This is my first-of-the-season, taken at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in southern Maine. If this year is like past years, there will Calico Pennants in numbers around the pond for several months now. Perhaps they are among my favorites because they are so easy to photograph…Pennants perch on the tips of vegetation and they often return to the same perch for several moments at a time…and they perch more or less horizontally…like a flag or pennant in the wind. It does take faster shutter speeds, because, like that flag in the wind, they are always in motion as the air moves around them. Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed and cropped in Polarr.
Spangled Skimmer
In the field, taking these photographs, I thought I had a male and female Spangled Skimmer, but when preparing this post I realized that the second one is a immature male. The Spangled Skimmer is one of my favorite dragonflies. As it flies the white stigma flash in a fascinating pattern with the complex motion of the wings. It is not quite so spectacular when perched but it is still an attractive dragon. These shots are at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in Southern Maine. It is a common dragonfly and I also photographed them this week at the Southern Maine Medical Center ponds here in Kennebunk. Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in FrameMagic.
Golden-winged Skimmer?
This might be a Maine State Record for Golden-winged Skimmer. I made a loop out through the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area and around by Old Falls and Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River on my ebike as a Sunday Photoprowl. I spent quite a while at Day Brook Pond on the Plains as there were several interesting species of dragonflies. And then there was this one. It was perching a good 25 feet out into the pond and not coming any closer to shore, and it always perched facing the same direction so my photos all show the same view. Still, it looks good for Golden-winged. I got one confirmation on the Northeast Odonata Facebook group, and I have submitted the photos to Odonata Central. Even if it “only” a Needham’s there are very few records of Needham’s in Maine either, so that will still be something. Such a big orange bug! Sony RX10iv at 1200mm equivalent (2x Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Green Darner Mating Wheel
The damsel and dragonflies are finally out in some numbers at our local hotspots, at least on days when it does not rain all day. Yesterday was one of our warmest days so far in the high 70’s (today will reach the 80s) and I found several species active around the drainage ponds at Southern Maine Medical Center. This pair of Green Darners landed right in front of me, on the outer surface of the wall of cattail reeds that now surrounds the pond (and makes dragonflying there a challenge). Sometimes you get blessed though. Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Painted Skimmer
The early Odes are finally emerging (or arriving) in southern Maine. This is somewhat worn (so migrant) male Painted Skimmer from Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk. I saw it over the pond first, with its wings flashing orange in the sun, and tracked it down to the shallow end of the pond to find its perch. I waited it out through several hunting sorties out over the pond but it came back to the same twig and I worked my way closer until I got this shot at 840mm equivalent (1.4x Smart Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Beaver-pond Baskettail
I went out for a photoprowl on my ebike to Emmon’s Preserve (Kennebunkport Conservation Trust), mainly to see if there were any River Jewelwings (damselflies) flying. I have seen River Jewelwings only once in my life, and that was in June at Emmon’s Preserve. Not yesterday. One of my goals for this summer is to photograph more dragonflies…and damselflies…odonata in general. My fascination with the form and function…the odd beauty of odonata, continues. Yesterday there was a medium sized dragonfly hunting in one of the little alcoves off the trail around the big meadow. These alcoves, sheltered from the wind on three sides, are often great spots for dragons. It looked, and acted, like a baskettail to me, in flight, and I waited ten minutes to see if it would perch (I have waited on baskettails before with no success.) This one, however, eventually did perch and I got a few shots. So of course I spent 30 minutes there waiting for it to perch again…and it did, twice more. I am never quite sure of my dragonfly ids…we have over 130 species recorded in York County Maine…and, even if a baskettail, there are quite a few baskettails it could have been. I am definitely a novice and I have no experience of iding dragons in the hand. This made an ideal trial for a new app I recently downloaded. Odes by Fieldguides.ai The Fieldguides series of apps (Everything, Odes, Leps, Birds, Plants, and Fungi) is a crowd sourced identification app. Folks submit photos and details, and when you submit a photo the ai engine attempts to identify whatever you submitted. I submitted my photo and the app suggested Beaverpond Baskettail. I was able to study several dozen other photos ided as Beaverpond, and concluded that the app was correct. A quick check with my DragonFly ID app pretty much confirmed it. I could still be wrong, but I have a fair degree of confidence that this is indeed a Beaverpond Baskettail (until someone who knows better tells me otherwise). Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
First Dragonflies of the Season
After seeing a few dragonflies in Florida when I visited Key West and the Dry Tortugas, and one dragonfly when in Ohio, I have been eagerly checking my local ponds for my first Maine dragon of the season. Earlier in the week I stopped by the Southern Maine Medical Center drainage ponds here in town, one of my most productive dragonfly spots over the years. Nothing happening. Yesterday, only a few days later, there were at least a dozen Common Green Darners hunting over the water and the adjacent parking lot. Green Darners are highly migrant and these are probably last year’s darners returning from a winter spent further south, and they were mostly males, but I caught at least one pair in the act of depositing eggs in the reeds at the edge of the pond. Things are looking up! Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Blue Dasher at Santa Ana
Blue Dasher, Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Alamo Texas
We are in New Mexico to visit our daughter and work the Festival of the Cranes, but yesterday was a travel day so today’s Pic still comes from Texas. The birding was somewhat slow at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge south of Alamo Texas when I visited last week, but there were lots of Butterflies and Dragonflies. This Blue Dasher posed nicely on its twig, giving me a good close up portrait of the face and wings.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. Processed in PhotoShop Express on my Android tablet.
Eastern Amberwing Dragonfly
Eastern Amberwing, Quest Ponds, Kennebunk Maine
There is a poem.
I got out to one of my dragonfly ponds
today, for a photoprowl. Mid-80s and
clear, but with enough breeze to make
it tolerable…pleasant actually…and lots
of dragons and damsels doing their thing
around the pond. Eastern Amberwings,
my first this year, not much bigger than
a bee, but holding their own among
dragons 4 times their size…flying low
to the water like orange sparks, resting
on floating clumps, clots of algae, males
and females playing tag across the pond.
I kept hoping one would land close in
to shore for a photo, but they held well
out, busy with Amberwing concerns,
and I had to settle for distant shots…
so little they are, they hardly show
in the frame, and wouldn’t at all if they
were any other color. Amberwings.
And that says all you need to know.
One of my favorite Dragonflies and one of the smallest. A skimmer. The males like this one have bright orange wings…the females have clear wings with orange/brown spots…the same color as the body. Like all skimmers, they take no guff from anyone…including the much larger Green Darners and Black-saddlebags that frequent the same ponds in our area…not to mention the Twelve-spotted and Widow Skimmers. You rarely see them more than a few inches above the water, so they only really share airspace with the Azure Bluets with abound at this time of year.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Cropped heavily for scale (about equivalent to 1200mm field of view) and processed in Lightroom.