The Dark Side Of Blue Dashers

On a recent trip back east, we noticed that the Blue Dashers there often have quite a bit of wing coloration—specifically, dark patches near the tip. Here are a couple examples:





In our area we only see wing coloration near the base of the wings. Interesting variability in this species.

What Big Eyes You Have!

Dragonfly eyes are beautiful and impressive. As an example, take a look at the eyes of a young Blue Dasher, shown below.



Notice the large reddish areas on the top of the eyes. These areas are referred to as the dorsal foveae—so named because they are on the top (dorsal) surface of the eyes, and are the parts of the eyes with the sharpest vision (analogous to the vertebrate fovea). The name is ironic because the word fovea is Latin for "pit," and indeed the fovea (area of sharpest vision) of a vertebrate's eye is a pit on the surface of the retina. In the case of a dragonfly, the fovea is not a pit, but it is the area of sharpest vision.

Here's another view of dorsal foveae in dragonflies, this time on a Cardinal Meadowhawk.



One of the interesting aspects of dorsal foveae is that the ommatidia (individual eyes) in them are rather large, and point primarily in one direction. This gives the sharp vision mentioned above. It also means that when you look directly at the dorsal foveae, you see an exceptionally large pseudopupil, as shown below.



My, what big eyes you have!

This effect is perhaps best seen in Blue Dashers. Take a look for the "big eyes" next time you get a good look at a Blue Dasher. You can read more about the eyes of dragonflies in my new field guide: Common Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Pacific Coast.

New Field Guide: Sample Spread

Here's the cover of my new dragonfly field guide.



The guide has a nice feel to it, due in part to the high quality paper that we used, but also to the size and shape of the book that allows it to fit nicely in the hand or pocket.

Here's a peek inside the guide, at the spread for the Blue Dasher.



Blue Dashers are one of the most common dragonflies in our area, and also one of the most photogenic. They perch all the time, repeatedly returning to the same perch and assuming wonderfully graceful poses. Look for these delightful insects at your local pond or lake, and you'll have a lot of fun getting some very nice photos!

Each species has its own spread like this one for the Blue Dasher, and each has a number of helpful features:

• Life Size Photo
• Range Map
• Flight-Season Chart
• Annotated Photos
• Colored Margins

Here's a brief description of each feature:

Life Size Photo (A unique feature in this guide) Dragonfly field guides generally give a numerical value for the size of a dragonfly species. This is fine, as far as it goes, but what's even better is to show the dragonfly at life size right there in the guide. The photo on the left side of the Blue Dasher spread shows the dragonfly at life size—as if it had actually landed on the page. Now you know exactly how big it is.

Range Map The range maps in this field guide are derived from dots maps produced by the Dragonfly Society of the Americas (DSA). The observations in the maps are vetted by dragonfly experts, and provide the current state-of-the-art in our knowledge of dragonfly ranges.

Flight-Season Chart (A unique feature in this guide) The DSA dot maps have dates associated with each observation. I have "data-mined" this information to produce charts that show the percentage of observations for each month of the year. The charts give not only the beginning and ending months of the flight season, as in many guides, but also the distribution of sightings within the season. For example, we can see that about 60% of all observations of Blue Dashers occur in the months of June and July.

Annotated Photos (A unique feature in this guide) It can be hard when you start to do some dragonflying to know just where to find the relevant field marks of a particular species. In this guide, each species has annotated photos that point out exactly where the key field marks are and how to interpret them.

Colored Margins The margins of each spread have a color that is most characteristic of that particular species. Thus, the margins on the Blue Dasher spread are blue. By looking for the appropriate color on the margins of the pages you can quickly locate the section where the dragonfly you want to identify is located.

The guide also includes detailed information on dragonfly behavior, and I'll describe some of those features in future posts.

Here's a link to the Amazon page for the book:

Link To Amazon

It's been a lot of fun writing this book, including as it does so many of my favorite photos and new observations of dragonfly behavior. I sincerely hope it will be helpful in introducing others to the pleasures of dragonflying!

Magnuson Park

This weekend we went to Magnuson Park in Seattle for the first time this summer. It was hot, and we were looking for shade most of the time. Still, the dragonflies were happy, and lots of them could be be seen at the various ponds.

Here's the location of Magnuson Park:





In the old days—when I was a kid—this area was known as Sandpoint. In those days, it was the location of Sandpoint Naval Airbase. Now, it's a lovely park with lots of different areas for different activities.

Our main interest is in the wildlife area, which consists of a smooth gravel path that winds around a number of small ponds, each slightly different in character. Some ponds dry up completely in the summer, some are much reduced, and some have a water supply that keeps them full all year round. We find a different distribution of odonate species at the various ponds, which makes Magnuson Park an interesting place to do some dragonflying.

On this trip, we saw lots of Western Pondhawks. Most were males, which are out and about defending their territory almost all of the time. Some were young, and still showed some of their adolescent green color on the thorax and near the base of the abdomen:





When possible, Western Pondhawks like to perch on the ground, or on a mat of algae. When a flat surface is not available, they may resort to perching on stems.

Notice that the males have a uniform blue color when fully mature. Specifically, the blue color  on the thorax is the same as the blue on the abdomen, unlike Blue Dashers whose thorax is a darker blue. Western Pondhawks also lack white stripes on the sides of the thorax that are present in Blue Dashers, and they have completely clear wings—Blue Dasher's wings have a bit of amber near the base. Finally, the face of the Western Pondhawk is green, as compared with the white face in the Blue Dasher.

Only a couple female Western Pondhawks were seen. They stay back from the water when not laying eggs, and their green color helps them blend in with the vegetation.



What a wonderful green color, especially on the thorax. Notice the small "egg scoop" projecting downward near the tip of the abdomen.

The next most numerous species at Magnuson Park was the Blue Dasher. These dragonflies are lively and beautiful. They perch frequently and give many good photo opportunities.



Here you can see that the thorax is darker blue, and has light-colored side stripes. Also, note the amber at the wing bases, and the white face.

Other species at the park included Spotted Spreadwing, Tule Bluet, Pacific Forktail, Blue-eyed Darner, Common Green Darner, Cardinal Meadowhawk, Common Whitetail, and Black Saddlebags.

Species Spotlight: Blue Dasher

Well, we've finished up with the dragonflies with "black" in their name, and are now onto the "blue" dragonflies. First up, the Blue Dasher.

This is one of my favorite dragonflies for a number of reasons. First, it's very widespread in its distribution, so you're likely to see one almost anywhere you go dragonflying. Here's it's range map:

The only blank areas are the upper plains and Rockies.

Second, it's very cute and photogenic. The Blue Dasher strikes delightful poses for the photographer, and lands repeatedly on favorite perches. Here are a couple shots of the male Blue Dasher:

The blue color of the Blue Dasher is produced not by pigments, but by light scattering from the microscopic structures on its body—in much the same way that the scattering of light gives the sky its blue color.

The large area on the top of the Blue Dasher's eyes, where you can just make out the lattice of individual eyes (the ommatidia), is known as the dorsal fovea. It is the part of the eye that gives the dragonfly its highest resolution vision. If you look straight down on the dorsal fovea you see large black pseudopupils, as shown below. (By the way, the white spots are reflections of the sun.)

Female Blue Dashers are completely different in appearance. They are cryptically colored with a brown background and numerous yellow stripes:

The Blue Dasher—beautiful, widespread, easy to photograph. This species has it all.

Dragonflying at Tortilla Creek

One of the places we like to dragonfly in Arizona is Tortilla Creek, in the little tourist town of Tortilla Flat.  The town consists of a few small "cowboy"-type businesses along the road.  Here's a picture of the town:



Most of the visitors to Tortilla Flat are probably not even aware of the small creek, Tortilla Creek, just across the street from the town.  Here's a view of the creek:



Everywhere you look when you visit Tortilla Creek you see incredible desert vistas, like the one below.



Dragonflies are out and flying at Tortilla Creek, though not nearly in the numbers that will be seen in about a month.  Even so, we had some good views of Common Green Darners, Flame Skimmers, Roseate Skimmers, Blue Dashers, and a Mexican Forktail.

The Flame Skimmers seemed particularly vibrant.  Here's one that landed right in front of us:



Notice the intense red colors in the wings, including the dark rectangular concentrations (opacities) near the wing bases – an important way to distinguish the Flame Skimmer from the similar Neon Skimmer.  I also like the yellow cross veins near the leading edges of the wings, and the contrast they make with the red colors elsewhere.

A Blue Dasher landed near us, and offered an unusual rear view:



Later, it turned around to give us some more common perspectives:





One other dragonfly gave us some nice close views – a male Roseate Skimmer.  It looked quite young and fresh, with lovely colors, and fairly clean wings.  Here are a few looks at it:





What a treat!

Tortilla Creek may not be well known, and it may be overlooked because of the tourist attractions across the road, but it's a nice place to view birds and dragonflies.

Dragonfly Whispering

A lot of people are getting interested in dragonfly whispering.

Here's a peek inside the book:

This is a Paddle-tailed Darner, the Happy-face Dragonfly, whispered onto a finger.

Dragonfly Drawing

The beauty of dragonflies has inspired me to try some dragonfly drawings based on my photos.  Here's one based on a photo of a Blue Dasher:

This male Blue Dasher is perched on a stem above the ground, which is typical of this species.  In fact, out of all the hundreds and hundreds of Blue Dashers I've seen over the years, I have yet to see even one perched on the ground.  They just don't like to perch there.  

On the other hand, our other blue dragonfly, the Western Pondhawk, wants to land on the ground.  It will be found on the ground unless bare ground is not available in the habitat.  Thus, a very good rule of thumb for our area is the following: Blue dragonfly on the ground = Western Pondhawk.

Cherry Springs Interpretive Sign

Not long ago, I was contacted by naturalist Sheri Covert at the Cherry Springs nature area near Pocatello, Idaho.  She was putting together an interpretive sign to inform visitors about some of the interesting insect life to be found there, and asked if she could use a couple of my dragonfly pictures.  I was happy to help with a project like that, and supplied her with pictures of the species she was looking for.  Here's a rough draft of the sign, which looks very nice.

Here's an enlargement of the dragonfly section:

I look forward to visiting Cherry Springs one of these days.  If any of my intrepid readers gets there first, please take a picture of the sign in place and we'll include it in the blog.

A Blue Dasher Comes In For A Landing

One of the advantages of being a dragonfly whisperer is that you have a pretty good idea what they're thinking.  In particular, you often know where a dragonfly wants to perch.  As a result, you can take a video of a particular branch or leaf and, before you know it, a dragonfly comes in for a landing.

Here's a case in point.  In the following video, keep a look out for a male Blue Dasher who finds this particular leaf irresistible as a perch.  He enters the frame from the right, rotates to the desired orientation, and then drops down for a landing.  Nice maneuver.

The Blue Dashers Are Back

Dragonfly season is in full swing now here in Arizona.  Betsy and I went to the Gilbert Water Ranch a few days ago, and dragonflies were everywhere.  One of the most common dragonflies there were the Blue Dashers, which are also one of the most photogenic of dragonflies.  Here are a couple pictures from our visit to the Water Ranch.

Not only are these dragonflies great for photography, they are also incredibly widespread.  We've seen them everywhere we've gone dragonflying, including Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.