Field Guide

Here's my field guide, as available on Amazon. It features the famous Happy-face Dragonfly on the cover.

This field guide gives life-size photos of each species, and includes all the commonly seen dragonflies and damselflies in Western Washington. It also points out the most helpful field marks for identification. In addition, most of the material in my presentations if given here as well.

Here it is in Amazon:

And here's a look inside at some of the inside pages:

I hope you will find this guide helpful. It's the guide I would have loved to find when I started dragonflying.

North Cascades Institute Presentation

I gave a Zoom presentation on dragonflies for the North Cascades Institute yesterday evening. It was my first Zoom presentation, so it was kind of a new experience for me. What was weird was presenting material without being able to see the reaction of the audience. Fortunately I could see Emily and Shelby, the tech support from NCI, who stood in as my surrogates for the crowd.

As I say, this was an interesting experience for me. Here are some of the comments from participants:

•    Love the humor and the videos, especially the trailer.

•    That was fun! I'm a filmmaker, I'll help you make your movie.

•    Dragonflies are my spirit animal too.

•    I attend a lot of zooms, and this was one of the best. Thank you!!

I'm glad it went over well, especially since it was a first-time effort on my part.

Thanks to all from NCI, and especially Emily and Shelby, for their help and support. They did a great job!

 Northern Spreadwing

On our recent trip to Beaver Pond in Winthrop we saw lots of Spotted Spreadwings, but also a few Northern Spreadwings. Here's one of them:

Notice the pruinose thorax, which is quite different from the "staircase" pattern on the side of the thorax in the Spotted Spreadwing.

 Blue Dasher — Beautiful Eyes

There were lots of Blue Dashers at the Quincy Lakes on August 13, 2023. Their eyes are beautiful, and the appearance of the eyes depends sensitively on the angle at which they are viewed. This applies especially to the large dorsal fovea areas on the top of the eyes, as seen in the photo below.

In the next photo, the dragonfly pivots a bit, and gives us a slightly different view. The large dark spot moves from one side of the eyes to the other.

Helping with the appearance of the eyes is the chalk white face, which provides a wonderful contrast.

 Tule Bluet

Here's a male Tule Bluet at Burke Lake near Quincy, Washington. We were there last Sunday, August 13, 2023.

Notice that the blue rings are a bit smaller than the black bands, as opposed to Northern and Boreal Bluets where the blue covers most of the abdomen, with black rings separating the blue bands.

 Black Saddlebags

We saw lots of Black Saddlebags flying about at Quincy Lakes and Crab Creek. We never saw one land, however, so the best I could do was a flight picture.

It appears this individual is snacking on a smaller flying insect that it caught on the wing.

 Quincy Lakes, August 13, 2023

Over the weekend we visited the Quincy Lakes area near George, Washington. Here's a nice Emma's Dancer posing for me.

Note the lavender color on the head and thorax. The abdomen is lavender with a blue tip. As is usual with dancers, the wings are being held up above the abdomen.