Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Pondhawks A-Plenty

Western Pondhawks are not that common in Anacortes.  Typically, we'll see maybe one a year, if that, and usually a female.  We saw a female on our field trip recently, and it was a bit of a surprise.

Yesterday, Betsy and I went to Heart Lake in Anacortes, which is near the road to the top of Mount Erie.  We've been there in the past, but hadn't seen a lot of activity.  That certainly wasn't the case yesterday – dragonflies were all over the place, and one of the most common was the Western Pondhawk.

The body of the adult male Western Pondhawk is solid blue, it's eyes are blue to green, and its face is green, with a nice Groucho Marx mustache.  Here are a couple pictures of adult males from yesterday:

Male Western Pondhawk.  Notice the Grouch Marx mustache.



Notice that these photos show the male perched on the ground.  That's where they prefer to perch, and in fact a good rule of thumb is "blue dragonfly on the ground = Western Pondhawk."  Our other blue dragonfly is the Blue Dasher.  It looks a lot like a Western Pondhawk, but I've never yet seen one of them land on the ground.

The female Western Pondhawks are all green.  In fact, Western Pondhawks are our only green dragonflies.  Here's a photo of one of the many females we saw at Heart Lake:

Female Western Pondhawk.

Male Western Pondhawks start off green, like females, not unlike many bird species where the young look like females.  As the male matures it turns blue from the tip of the abdomen forward, with everything becoming blue except the face, which retains its green color.  We saw many "transitional" males at Heart Lake, like the one shown below:

A "transitional" male Western Pondhawk about half way through its changeover from green to blue.

Look for more about our Heart Lake observations to come.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Follow Up On Field Trip

The dragonfly field trip on Saturday was a delightful success.  Great weather, and a wonderful group of dragonfly enthusiasts to share the experience.  Thanks to all of you for taking the time to join us on one of our odonate explorations.  Your enthusiasm and insightful questions make the field trips a memorable experience for us.

The dragonflies were very cooperative, as you might expect on such a sunny, warm day.  We saw most of the "usual suspects," and one surprise species as well.  Here's our species list:

Damselflies
Spotted Spreadwing
Tule Bluet
Northern/Boreal Bluet
Pacific Forktail

Dragonflies
Paddle-tailed Darner (the Happy-face Darner)
Blue-eyed Darner
Four-spotted Skimmer
Eight-spotted Skimmer
Cardinal Meadowhawk
Red-veined Meadowhawk
Striped Meadowhawk
Western Pondhawk (our surprise species)

Here are some photos of the species mentioned above:

Clockwise from upper left:  Spotted Spreadwing (staircase pattern on side of thorax), Tule Bluet (dash-dash-dash-dash), Northern/Boreal Bluet (dash-dot-dash-dot), Pacific Forktail (no blue until the tip of the tail).

Clockwise from upper left:  Paddle-tailed Darner (Mr. Happy-face), Blue-eyed Darner, Four-spotted Skimmer, Eight-spotted Skimmer.

Clockwise from upper left:  Cardinal Meadowhawk (opaque red at base of wings), Red-veined Meadowhawk (Anacortes specialty), Striped Meadowhawk, Western Pondhawk (our only green dragonfly).

Thanks again for joining us.  We look forward to our next trip.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Dragonfly Field Trip, Saturday, August 9

Greetings Dragonfliers!

We hope you can join us at noon this Saturday, August 9, for a fun field trip to look for dragonflies and damselflies in Anacortes!  The weather looks favorable, and we expect to see a good number of species and individuals.

Here are the details:

Meet at Smiley's Bottom (directions below) at noon.  We'll gather in the parking lot next to the restrooms and picnic tables (you might want to have lunch there just before noon).  Later, we'll carpool to Little Cranberry Lake, which is just a mile or so away.  We'll probably finish up around 3:00 pm.

Bring binoculars and cameras.  Also, bring a spotting scope if you have one – they provide excellent views.

Here's how to get to Smiley's Bottom:

1.  Enter Anacortes from Hwy 20 at the traffic circle and go North on Commercial Avenue.
2.  Turn left onto 12th Street (at the Safeway).
3.  Turn left onto G Street.
4.  Go one block South to the parking lot at the baseball fields.  Enter the closest parking area and go to your right to the meeting point.

Below is a map showing the route to the Smiley's Bottom parking area, and to Little Cranberry Lake as well.


The ground could be a bit soggy in a few places at Smiley's Bottom, it is "bottom land" after all, but it probably won't be muddy.  The footing is fine at Cranberry Lake.

Here's a list of the species we're likely to encounter on our trip:

Damselflies
Spotted Spreadwing
Tule Bluet
Northern/Boreal Bluet
Pacific Forktail

Dragonflies
Paddle-tailed Darner (the Happy-face Dragonfly)
California Darner
Blue-eyed Darner
Variegated Meadowhawk
Cardinal Meadowhawk
Red-veined Meadowhawk
Striped Meadowhawk
Four-spotted Skimmer
Eight-spotted Skimmer
Blue Dasher

At Smiley's Bottom we should see Red-veined Meadowhawks, a fairly uncommon dragonfly that we've seen at this location but no others, and Paddle-tailed Darners hovering over the ditches.

At Little Cranberry Lake we should see lots of territorial interactions between the Four-spotted Skimmers and Eight-spotted Skimmers.  We should also see some splash-dunking and spin-drying.

Happy Dragonflying!

Monday, August 4, 2014

Dragonflying In Anacortes

Betsy and I spent some time after lunch today dragonflying at Cranberry Lake and Smiley's Bottom.  Pretty good activity at both locations.

The main species we saw today are summarized in the photo below:

Clockwise from upper left: Paddle-tailed Darner, Variegated Meadowhawk, Striped Meadowhawk (female), Red-veined Meadowhawk, Eight-spotted Skimmer, Four-spotted Skimmer, Spotted Spreadwing, Blue-eyed Darner.

We saw a fair amount of splash-dunking and spin-drying at Cranberry Lake.  As soon as we got there, a Blue-eyed Darner did 4 splash-dunks, before performing a very visible spin-dry.  After that a Four-spotted Skimmer did 3 splash-dunks and a spin-dry.  Later, we saw an Eight-spotted Skimmer do a series of 3 events in rapid succession, each consisting of one splash-dunk followed by one spin-dry.  Other Eight-spotted Skimmers were observed to splash-dunk as well.  This made the lake quite active today both in terms of the number of splash-dunks observed (8), and the number of species doing the splash-dunks (3).

We saw many Red-veined Meadowhawks at Smiley's Bottom.  So far, this is the only location where we've observed these dragonflies, but they are there in numbers every year.

This was also out first observation of the Paddle-tailed Darner for this year.  It was great to see our old friend again, patrolling the ditches, protecting territories and searching for females.

Paddle-tailed Darner (male) hovering over his territory in a ditch at Smiley's Bottom.

The were constantly hovering, giving time to observe their yellowish thorax stripes, blue spots on S10, paddle-shaped appendages, and of course, the happy face smiling back at you.