Posts in Category: damselflies
Aurora Damsel
Aurora Damsel, Emmon’s Preserve, Kennebunkport, Maine
This is another teneral bug…a newly emerged Aurora Damsel (damselfly). The color will be more bluish when it finishes hardening off into its full adult form, but the pattern on the back is distinctive.
Sony RX10iii at 840mm equivalent (in camera crop at 600mm equivalent). I used Direct Manual Focus to fine tune the focus on the damsel’s head. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Ebony Jewelwings
Ebony Jewelwings, Batson River rapids, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
It is just about Ebony Jewelwings time of year again. After my encounter with the River Jewelwings a few weeks ago (here), I went back to the rapids on the Batson River on Saturday to check for early Ebonys, and there were indeed a number of males dancing over the rapids and pools. All Ebonys, no River…which is, I think, an interesting thing to note. And I found no females, either near the river in the forest, or in the meadows. Maybe next week. There is, of course, nothing like the iridescent blue/green of the Ebony Jewelwing’s body…sometimes bright blue and sometimes bright green, depending on the angle of the light.
The center image is from the Sony HX90V and the surrounding images are from the Nikon P900. All are processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage. Coolage is such a great program for this kind of panel!
River Jewelwing
River Jewelwing, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
I took a photoprowl around the meadow loop at Emmons Preserve (Kennebunk Land Conservancy) yesterday morning. I was looking mostly for dragonflies, and on a somewhat tight schedule as I had to have the car back. One of the first dragonflies I saw was what I thought was a female Ebony Jewelwing, and up at the top of the meadow I photographed several…enough to inspire me to make a quick mile hike through the forest to the little set of falls on the Batson River where the males hang out. And there were males, hovering, dancing, and darting right over the rapids where the fall enters the pool, where I have seen them every year. I was a bit bemused though, as it is at least a month earlier than I have ever seen Ebony Jewelwings at Emmons Preserve…and this in a spring that is running late, even as we approach summer. Of course when I got back to the computer and processed the images I realized that they were not Ebony Jewelwings at all…they were River Jewelwings…a species I have never seen at Emmons, or anywhere else! The difference is that the Ebony Jewelwing has a completely back wing (bright black in the male, if that is a possible construction, and dull black in the female), River Jewelwings have black only at the tips of the males wings, and the female wings are smoky overall with perhaps a bit of darkening at the tips…though I could not observe any darkening at all. River Jewelwings! On my patch!
Female River Jewelwing
Nikon P900 at 550mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Aurora Damsel (on Buttercup)
It is always exciting for me to find a new bug…especially one as beautiful as this Aurora Damsel. It is a member of the Pond Damsel family, along with Bluets, Dancers, and Forktails, but in this pose (typical) it looks more like a spreadwing because of the way it holds its wings. It’s markings are so unique though, that, once identified for the first time, it is hard to mistake it for anything else. It is simply one of those bonuses of photographing nature that it landed on the buttercup, and stayed long enough for me to capture it. 🙂
(The red dots on the back of its head are reflections of the sun, not part of its pattern.)
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 1200mm equivalent (600 optical plus 2x digital extender). Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Eastern Forktail. Happy Sunday!
I leave this afternoon for a week of travel in Germany, Austria, and maybe a day in Hungary, so these posts may be erratic over the next few days. It is hard to predict how much wifi I will have, and I can not afford a lot of data on my phone. We shall see. I hope to have abundant photo ops, but it is mainly a business and birding trip (or maybe I should say a “business of birding” trip).
This is an immature female Eastern Forktail. Eastern Forktails are among the earliest Odonata to fly in the spring, and they are certainly all the action around the ponds in Kennebunk right now. I am wondering if a few overwinter, or migrate in early in the spring from locations where they can overwinter, since I am seeing fully pruniose females along with the immatures and the males. I do not think they have been flying long enough here to have developed the degree of pruniosity that I am seeing. ?
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1 /640th @ ISO 250 @ f6.7. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought. I gave at least a few moments extra thought to what image I wanted to leave you with as I start my European adventure. Something homey? Something particularly Maineish? And in the end, I am not sure why this image is appropriate. It just felt right. It speaks to me. I hope it speaks to you. And that is, at its best, what photography does. It communicates at a non-verbal level, without the need for words…for analysis…almost, one might say, without the need for reason. Vision to vision. My vision to your vision. Pure and simple. In that sense, is it, somehow, more of a spiritual communication? Of course, I am ignoring all the technical apperatus…camera…software…etc…and the considerable technique involved in producing the image. Certainly, on some level, the process of photography is as complex as reasoned argument, or certainly as complex as day to day discourse. Perhaps it is not that photography is a more spiritual medium…it is that, too often, we forget that any communication is spiritual. My spirit to your spirit. Pure and simple. Happy Sunday!
And do watch for whatever I am able to post from Europe.
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.
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.
Variable Dancer (Violet Dancer). Emmon’s Preserve
The Variable Dancer is, as its name implies, the only Dragon or, in this case, Damselfly which has three distinct subspecies which vary enough in appearance to warrant individual common names. This is the “Violet” Dancer of the north and northeast. There is also the “Smokey-winged Dancer” of the southeast, west to the Mississippi, and the “Black” Dancer of Florida.
But they are all the same species, and intergrades of all verities exist where there is overlap in territory. Maine is far enough from any other variant so it is safe to say this is a pure Argia fumipennis violacea. I like the interesting angle on this shot. It makes me smile, somehow.
The female is much plainer and much more difficult to sort from other Dancer females…except by proximity to the male, and tandem pairs, as in the 3rd shot, help a lot with that.
You have admit (or at least I have to admit) that the violet color on this damselfly is quite striking.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/320th to 1/1000th @ ISO 200 to 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Ebony Jewelwing, Emmon’s Preserve
I intended to get back to Emmon’s Preserve and the little tumbling falls on the Batson River in early August to catch the mating dance of the Ebony Jewelwings that live there, but the press of affairs (as they say) and the fact that we were a car down from mid-July to mid-August kept me from it until yesterday afternoon. There are still Ebony Jewelwings by the rapids, but the mating flights were all over.
Still, an Ebony Jewelwing is a an Ebony Jewelwing…with that unmistakable bright metallic green body flashing in the patches of sun in the forest and over the stream. Except, of course, when it is electric blue.
While you could be forgiven for thinking this is a different species, this is the same bug, just in different light. When the bug moves on, it will be green again. This is a much rarer view, generally you only get a glimpse of this look as the Jewelwing settles briefly in the necessary light, and then flits on. The emerald green is what you see 96% of the time.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast. 1680mm equivalent field of view. 1) –1/3EV exposure compensation, f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. 2) –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Familiar Bluet Mating Wheel
As difficult as it is to imagine (at least for me) today is my 65th birthday. That used to be a real milestone, when it was the legal retirement age, and it still carries some weight. You can not believe the number of Medicare Supplement letters I have gotten in the past 6 months! (Unless you have been there yourself.) But no…I don’t feel any different today than I did yesterday, or significantly different than I did a year ago for that matter. In fact, there are parts of me that I begin to suspect do not age at all. Mostly this is a good thing.
For instance I am still learning…though I am beginning to realize that Damselflies may be right at the edge of my attention span. They are not easy to identify, especially from a photo or in the kinds of looks you get in the field…unless you catch them and use a hand-lens. I am probably not going there.
So I think this is a pair of Familiar Bluets mating. Beyond its ID value, I like the image because of the other elements as well: The spiny seed heads, the arch of the reed, and the way the damselflies are framed by the broken reed in the background.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1 EV exposure compensation. (You might have noticed that my conventional –1/3EV has advanced to –1EV over the past few weeks. This is largely due to the damselflies, and specifically to the blues on the flies. They are so intense that they burn to white even at –1/3EV.) 1680mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.