Backyard and Beyond

Six years after spotting a male Citrine Forktail at Brooklyn Bridge Park, I spotted one in Green-Wood this week. This is my second record.

Ischnura hastata is one the smallest of the damselflies. They like “densely vegetated pond and lake edges, grass seepages, and quiet streams,” according to Ed Lam. The site at Brooklyn Bridge Park fits that profile. Green-Wood doesn’t. But the species also gets around: strays are sometimes found far from water. Sure, there’s water in G-W, but the nearest “Water,” as the ponds are called, is very orderly, completely without vegetated edges

Odonata Central had one ten-year-old report of this species in Kings County (Brooklyn). I added mine to that database. I wasn’t aware of OC when I spotted the one in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Over at iNaturalist, there are now two observations for Kings County, although one of them is questionable: it hasn’t been confirmed to research grade; the picture isn’t clear enough; I can’t tell.

Meanwhile, my observation at Brooklyn Bridge Park isn’t counted for Kings Co. because, by a fluke of history, the Kings County line ends at the low tide mark. New York County (i.e. Manhattan) claims the piers the park is built on! Say what? This is a technical point, true, but on iNaturalist the county lines are the county lines.

Same day, nearby, this female Bluet (Familiar is the usual option, but…) was snacking on what looked like a fly.

A lot of patches went un-mown this year in Green-Wood. They’re seeing what results, along with folks from Cornell U. One thing that results: the invertebrates! Walk though the grasses and forbs, and tiny things shoot away from you, grasshoppers and katydids bound away helter-skelter, moths flutter in a whirl, and occasionally the exotic Odonata shows up.

P.S.: I wrote about odonating for the summer issue of the Clapper Rail.