damselflies
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Odes
Spot-winged Glider, in a rare perch. They can spend hours in the air.Blue Dasher male, quite common and frequently perched.Eastern Pondhawk male.Male Painted SkimmerThis damselfly is peculiar. I can find no matching ID for it, and both iNaturalist and bugguide.net remain silent to my queries. I think it may be a maturing andromorph (that is,…
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And the Damsels
Still in Virginia: Female Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita) depositing eggs.Furtive Forktail (Ischnura prognata) male, a first for me. Such a challenge to photograph these wee critters!And then to ID them! Immediately above and below, a female Familiar Bluet ((Enallagama civile)). (My best guess: iNaturalist and bug guide.net haven’t come through.) The females of this species…
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Enter The Dragons
A trip a few states south results in a preview of the shape of Odonata to come. Emerging adult dragonflies in a small pond. There were about a dozen. Eastern Pondhawks, I think. Once they wiggle out of the husks of their larval forms, they need to harden off, develop their color, stiffen their wings.…
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One Giant Spreadwing
The largest damselfly in the Northeast is a Southwestern species that has been expanding its range our way for the last century. The Giant Spreadwing Archilestes grandis can be up to 2.4″ long, as big as a medium-sized dragonfly. I spotted two males in the Bronx and had a very hard time getting a usable…
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Wetlands
An early morning in September, still warm and humid but not oppressively so. The wetland is rather quiet, though above me a couple squirrels gnaw away at hickories.I am delighted to see a spreadwing, the first I’ve seen in the Bronx. Slender Spreadwing, Lestes rectangularis, I think. He has caught a fly and is eating…
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Ischnura ramburii
Wednesday is traditionally Raptor Day here at B&B. Damselflies are quite the airborne predators, so…. This one is an immature female Rambur’s Forktail (Ischnura ramburii), spotted at Jamaica Bay with numerous others of her species. I’ve seen a male away from the Bay, in Green-Wood once. Several of the Ischnura genus have orange colored immature…
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Damselflies
One of the Lestes genus spreadwing damselflies.Spotted in Sapsucker Woods. One of the differences between dragon and damselflies is that damselflies rest with their wings closed. Except of course for the spreadwings… I think it’s the Spotted (L. congener), but I’m not a 100% sure on that. I’d never seen it before. Spotted on the…
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Bluets & Forktails
Azure Bluet (Enallagma aspersum) male.Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile) male. Familiar Bluet female, one of three color forms for this species. When odonating, you will quickly see that it’s males who patrol the water. Females are often munching away elsewhere, and come down to the water to pair up and lay their eggs in the wet…
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Odonata Season
I saw my first living dragonfly outside my windows on Saturday. I’d seen a couple of Common Green Darners here and there during the last few weeks, but spotting an unidentified dragon over 6th Avenue was the real start of the summer flying season for me. On the same day around Green-Wood’s Sylvan Water, I…
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Weekend Update
It’s been absurdly warm. Lots of trees are nowhere ready to shake off their leaves. Bumblebees, which can take 60 degree temperatures, you might expect to still be around, but some of the smaller bees were out and about, too. This metallic green bee of the Agapostemon genus, for instance. But it’s late October: there…
Backyard and Beyond 