It's Tule Time!

Betsy and I have been to Cranberry Lake the last several days enjoying the beautiful Fall days. The weather has been lovely, and the dragonfly activity has been interesting. Yesterday there were lots of Paddle-tailed Darners perched in the bushes (6 to 8 at a time), and many pairs of Autumn Meadowhawks flying in tandem.

We also saw lots of bluets, but the funny thing was they were all Tule Bluets, like the ones below:





Notice that these bluets have roughly equal amounts of black and blue on the middle segments of the abdomen. In comparison, Northern and Boreal Bluets have mostly blue with small rings of black. You can see this comparison in the pages from my field guide, Common Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Pacific Coast, shown below:





You can find the field guide on Amazon, at the following link:

https://www.amazon.com/Common-Dragonflies-Damselflies-Pacific-Coast/dp/1934199265/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537462425&sr=8-1&keywords=dragonflies+pacific

I was surprised to be seeing only Tules, but on consulting my field guide, I see that it is twice as likely to see Tules in September.

As with all bluets, the Tules are aggressively territorial. Here is one harassing a pair of Blue-eyed Darners:



We filmed a "cloud" of bluets at Cranberry Lake a couple days ago, and noticed that they are very accomplished at flying backwards. Here's a short video clip showing one flying in reverse:

Here's a group of them backing up in unison, like some kind of bluet line dance:

Fascinating creatures, coming or going.