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Updated on Friday, November 6 at 07:55 AM ET
The most recently received Mail is at the top.


Zebra Dove,©Barry Kent Mackay

6 Nov Late season odonates in Early County GA 11/4/2009 ["Giff Beaton" ]
4 Nov Re: Fw: Lost Hiker []
04 Nov Re: Fw: Lost Hiker [Alex Netherton ]
3 Nov Fw: Lost Hiker []
30 Oct Still a few odes around in Northern SC [Chris Hill ]
24 Oct Hyacinth Glider (Miathyria marcella) in Richmond County, GA ["croakie1" ]
10 Oct Southwestern GA Odonates on 10/8/2009 ["Giff Beaton" ]
8 Oct Re: Meadowhawk [Dennis Paulson ]
08 Oct Re: [NCOdonates] NC mystery damsel photo [Alex Netherton ]
08 Oct Re: Meadowhawk [Alex Netherton ]
07 Oct Still a few odes in NE Georgia [Marion Dobbs ]
6 Oct NC mystery damsel photo ["birdranger" ]
6 Oct Ovipositing CGD; migrants []
5 Oct Re: Meadowhawk it was not. Thanks! ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
5 Oct Re: Meadowhawk []
5 Oct Re: Meadowhawk [Dennis Paulson ]
5 Oct meadowhawk [Greg Dodge ]
5 Oct Meadowhawk ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
4 Oct Lynches River County Park, Florence Co., South Carolina [Chris Hill ]
30 Sep Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
30 Sep Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Marion Dobbs ]
30 Sep Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
30 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
29 Sep Re: Anax junius spring emergence [Steve Hummel ]
29 Sep Re: Anax junius spring emergence [Dennis Paulson ]
29 Sep Anax junius spring emergence [Hal White ]
29 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
29 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Bruce Grimes ]
29 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
29 Sep Re: Fwd: [TexOdes] Fw: [texbirds] FW: Dragonfly takes down a hummingbird ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC []
28 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? []
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC ["SL Brown" ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
28 Sep Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Mike May ]
28 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? ["Jan Roxburgh" ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
28 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? [Dennis Paulson ]
28 Sep Re: Dragonfly parasites? [June Tveekrem ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
28 Sep Dragonfly parasites? ["jani" ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Marion Dobbs ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Marion Dobbs ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Chris Hill ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [jspippen ]
28 Sep Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC [Dennis Paulson ]
28 Sep Late Skimmers Conway SC [Chris Hill ]
22 Sep Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer []
22 Sep Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer ["Troy, Marla, & Cheyenne Hibbitts" ]
21 Sep Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer []
21 Sep Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer [Mike May ]
20 Sep Re: Meadowhawk? [June Tveekrem ]
20 Sep Re: Meadowhawk? [Steve Hummel ]
20 Sep Meadowhawk? [Alex Netherton ]
20 Sep Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer [Dennis Paulson ]
20 Sep Twelve-spotted Skimmer [Chris Hill ]
16 Sep [Fwd: Hilton Pond 09/01/09 (Damsels & Dragons)] [1 Attachment] [Alex Netherton ]
15 Sep Re: "Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood!" AAh! Mr. Rogers-Good Times!! and Dragonflies-well most of the time! [Alex Netherton ]
13 Sep Ruubyspot [Alex Netherton ]
13 Sep Re: Asheville, NC odonatist? [Alex Netherton ]
11 Sep Asheville, NC odonatist? [June Tveekrem ]
4 Sep What would be the opposite of "Sting?" Erythemis simplicicollis, my personal "Bug Terminator" [Martha Smith ]
4 Sep Horry County, SC: elusive emeralds and Georgia River Cruiser [Chris Hill ]
01 Sep Rabun Co., GA [Marion Dobbs ]
25 Aug NC Sandhills Odes August 23 []
25 Aug Re: Clear Pond, Horry Co., SC [Dennis Paulson ]
25 Aug Clear Pond, Horry Co., SC [Chris Hill ]
24 Aug Re: Fort Gordon, GA 8/23/09 ["Lois Stacey" ]
23 Aug Horry County Bug Chase - you're invited [Chris Hill ]

Subject: Late season odonates in Early County GA 11/4/2009
From: "Giff Beaton" <giffbeaton AT mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 08:55:04 -0500
Hi again everyone- On Wednesday 11/4 I duplicated the trip that Steve
Krotzer and I made into sw GA on 10/8, just seeing what might still be
flying with the fairly warm temps we have been having. The day was mostly
sunny with highs around 77F. 

 

I again started at Kolomoki Mounds State Park, Early Co, GA (KMSP). I
checked the  lakes, and a stream area below the big dam on Lake Kolomoki. I
also went to Williams Bluff Preserve (WBP), the Nature Conservancy property
without public access, and the Ophiogomphus site.  There are several streams
here, a small almost permanent pond good for spreadwings, and a huge almost
permanent cypress pond. 

 

I had 16 species for the day, as follows:

 

Hetaerina titia (Smoky Rubyspot): 1, KMSP

Lestes australis (Southern Spreadwing): about 50 at WBP, mostly in pairs

Lestes vidua (Carolina Spreadwing): about 40, numbers way down from last
month, and now mostly singles so they do appear to have been ahead of the
australis, at least for this site this year.

Argia fumipennis fumipennis (Variable Dancer): 5, both sites

Argia sedula (Blue-ringed Dancer): 7, KMSP

Enallagma cardenium (Purple Bluet, used to be E coecum): just 1 left, WBP

Enallagma doubledayi (Atlantic Bluet): about 40, WBP

Ischnura hastata (Citrine Forktail): 15, WBP

Ischnura kellicotti (Lilypad Forktail): 5, inc two pairs, KMSP

Ischnura posita (Fragile Forktail): 2, WBP

 

Anax junius (Common Green Darner), 40+. About half and half males patrolling
and pairs in tandem with still some ovipositing. 

Erythrodiplax minuscula (Little Blue Dragonlet): 8, both sites

Miathyria marcella (Hyacinth Glider): 1, KMSP. At a lake with no know
hyacinth, a county record.

Orthemis ferruginea (Roseate Skimmer): about 12, both sites

Pachydiplax longipennis (Blue Dasher): about 15, WBP

Tramea carolina (Carolina Saddlebags): about 10, WBP

 

Pretty nice list for this late in the season, but won't be many of these
around much longer. 

 

 

Giff Beaton

Marietta GA

 
Subject: Re: Fw: Lost Hiker
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 20:16:51 -0500 (GMT-05:00)




Subject: Re: Fw: Lost Hiker
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:21:45 -0500




Subject: Fw: Lost Hiker
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:47:38 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Hey all - not relevant to odonata, but urgent enough to share via this list 
anyway; please pass around to anyone who might be able to help... JSR 


-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Carol 
>Sent: Nov 3, 2009 2:29 PM
>To: natural-history AT duke.edu
>Subject: Lost Hiker
>
>  We lost a hiker who belongs to Triangle Hiking and Outdoor club over 
>the weekend. He was last heard from Sat out in TN. A missing person 
>report has been filed. Please be on the lookout for the following: - A 
>Green Nissan Pickup truck with NC plates (Appalachian Trail specialty 
>plate with license "TENT") - John is 5'7" 135 pounds and is 46 years 
>old. He has no known acute medical problems  If you come across the 
>vehicle, please notify the authorities ASAP. Right now, the first 
>priority is to locate his vehicle, so that we know where to search.  
>Please forward this message to anyone you know in the eastern TN, 
>western NC, northern GA, northwestern SC regions. Thank you for your 
>assistance  If someone wants to broadcast onto Twitter or Facebook, 
>please use this message : "Missing Hiker, 2 days overdue, looking for 
>GREEN Nissan pickup truck with NC license plate Appalachian State 
>Specialty plate "TENT", call authorities if you spot the vehicle ASAP"
>
>Thanks for any help... Carol Ray
Subject: Still a few odes around in Northern SC
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:41:50 -0400
Checked a couple ponds near me in the beautiful weather yesterday:

Enallagma civile, Familiar Bluet: 23
Ischnura hastata, Citrine Forktail: 1
Ischnura posita, Fragile Forktail: 1
Ischnura ramburii, Rambur's Forktail: 17
Erythemis simplicicollis, Common Pondhawk: 1
Orthemis ferruginea, Roseate Skimmer: 2
Perithemis tenera, Eastern Amberwing: 1

Notes:

- both ponds are ordinary retention ponds, and the list reflects  
that.  I haven't visited any of the 'nice' sites near me lately.
- the fall burst of familiar bluets and Rambur's forktails is standard  
fare.
- The pondhawk was the first I've seen in a month or so (not that I've  
been looking much).  Pondhawks usually disappear here around 1  
October, but this one must have emerged late.
-  in the last year or two I've seen the occasional Common Green  
Darner as late as mid-December, so the flying ode season is far from  
completely over, but I thought the above was still pretty good at this  
date for about 20 minutes of looking.  The local weather has been just  
spectacularly nice recently.

CH
************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

Brevity is the soul of ambiguity.  - H. Curl

Subject: Hyacinth Glider (Miathyria marcella) in Richmond County, GA
From: "croakie1" <croakie AT comcast.net>
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:54:49 -0000
Anne Waters and I were birding in the rain this morning (having a pretty good 
day, too). Finally the rain stopped and the sun came out and it wasn't minutes 
later that insect activity picked up. One of the very first bugs we saw was 
what I initially thought was an immature Carolina Saddlebags but then I 
realized it was a little small and awfully yellow to be that species. It 
finally lit and sure enough, it was my second (but really first!) choice, a 
Hyacinth Glider(Miathyria marcella). This is the first one I've seen and a new 
county record. There were still a few pondhawks around though not many but we 
did see quite a few Roseate Skimmers (Orthemis ferruginea) around. 



Lois Stacey
North Augusta, SC (Aiken Cnty)





Subject: Southwestern GA Odonates on 10/8/2009
From: "Giff Beaton" <giffbeaton AT mindspring.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:06:31 -0400
Hi everyone- On Thursday 10/8 Steve Krotzer and I made a brief foray into sw
GA and sw AL looking for odonates, and though we didn't find anything rare
we did find some fairly late individuals and other interesting things. Among
other things, we were looking for Lestes forficula (Rainpool Spreadwing),
which has been spreading east from TX for the last couple of years. We did
not find any. Here are some of the highlights of the day, which was cool and
cloudy to start and then sunny and hot in the afternoon:

 

Kolomoki Mounds State Park, Early Co, GA (before Steve arrived). This park
has two nice big lakes, and a stream area below the big dam on Lake
Kolomoki, all are pretty good for odonates at times. 14 species, notable:

 

3 Argia bipunctulata (Seepage Dancer) About 3 weeks later than my previous
late dates

 

Williams Bluff Preserve, also Early Co, a Nature Conservancy property
without public access, and the site of some intriguing Ophiogomphus we have
been working on the last few years. They may end up being O australis
(Southern Snaketail) but we don't know for sure yet. There are several
streams here, a small almost permanent pond good for spreadwings, and a huge
almost permanent cypress pond. We had 20 species here, notable:

 

Over 250 Lestes vidua (Carolina Spreadwing), which is a ridiculous number.
We both commented that this is more than we have seen ever, combined. There
were a few L australis (Southern Spreadwing) mixed in, but they were mostly
fresh and away from the water, which we speculate means they are a bit
behind the vidua emergence-wise. 

 

25 Enallagma cardenium (Purple Bluet, used to be E coecum) This is a nice
number for the SE away from FL.

 

50+ Anax junius (Common Green Darner) mostly in tandem with lots of
ovipositing. It's late, but not too late for A longipes (Comet Darner), but
we didn't see any, which is surprising given the size of this pond and the
numbers of junius. 

 

We also hit a couple of other ponds looking for spreadwings, finding nothing
much, and went over to Chattahoochee State Park in Houston Co AL, right
across the border. Here we found lots of common stuff, and a few each of
Enallagma signatum and pollutum (Orange and Florida Bluets). We ended up the
day with around 30 species, which isn't bad for October.

 

Giff Beaton

Marietta GA
Subject: Re: Meadowhawk
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 19:19:55 -0700
Alex,

We don't know how it got introduced, although larvae (or eggs?) in  
with aquatic plants for nursery use seems to be much the most likely  
way.

It turns out that the species is all over the Greater Antilles (Cuba,  
Jamaica, Puerto Rico at least), and it is very likely it was first  
introduced to one or more of those islands, then spread elsewhere,  
including into Florida.

It's not known to have any effects on the local fauna, not that anyone  
is really looking carefully at that. But there have been no  
extinctions or declines in any local odonates. Who knows about local  
mayflies, etc.?

The Florida peninsula is getting filled up with neotropical species  
coming in under their own power, so there are a lot of changes in the  
fauna going on at once that may be more significant than the Scarlet  
Skimmer introduction.

Dennis


On Oct 8, 2009, at 9:36 AM, Alex Netherton wrote:

> How did Scarlet Skimmer get introduced from Asia? Do they cause any  
> problems, as many introductions do?
> Alex Netherton
> Asheville, NC
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carolinamountainbirding/
> http://blueridgediscovery.blogspot.com
>
>
> Dennis Paulson wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Jan.
>>
>>
>> Those yellow dragons are female and/or immature Scarlet Skimmers.  
>> This is the only introduced (from Asia) species of odonate in North  
>> America. The males are gorgeous scarlet red. In fact I see you also  
>> photographed a male. I suppose the reason the yellow ones just  
>> turned up, is because they are just emerging from somewhere nearby.
>>
>> Both of your damelflies are Rambur's Forktails, the orange one a  
>> female. Dragonfly 0012 is a male Metallic Pennant. Dragon blue is a  
>> male Blue Dasher. Dragon yellow stripes is a young male Band-winged  
>> Dragonlet. Dragonfly pose is a female Blue Dasher.
>>
>> There are no meadowhawks in southern Florida (except for the rare  
>> visitation of migrant Variegated Meadowhawks, usually along the  
>> Gulf coast in the winter).
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>> On Oct 5, 2009, at 8:55 AM, Jan Roxburgh wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Just had a lot of these yellow dragons turn up to keep the Halloween
>>> Pennants and a few others company... female saffronwinged  
>>> meadowhawk maybe?
>>> They look quite amazing when flying around and catching the  
>>> sunlight... like
>>> gleaming gold. This one posed long enough for a photo. Will add to  
>>> Jan
>>> photo album on the group.
>>>
>>
>> -----
>> Dennis Paulson
>> 1724 NE 98 St.
>> Seattle, WA 98115
>> 206-528-1382
>> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>>
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 8.5.420 / Virus Database: 270.14.4/2417 - Release Date:  
>> 10/06/09 06:50:00
>>
>>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: [NCOdonates] NC mystery damsel photo
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:10:04 -0400




Subject: Re:  Meadowhawk
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:36:34 -0400




Subject: Still a few odes in NE Georgia
From: Marion Dobbs <spreadwing AT mac.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:06:32 -0400
I visited a small marshy area near Hightower Creek, Towns Co., in the  
"mountains" of NE Georgia on back-to-back days, with different  
weather conditions each day, and found a little, very little, bit of  
activity.

	Oct 6 - mostly overcast, 70F

Slender Spreadwing (Lestes rectangularis)	1
Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita)		1
Shadow Darner (Aeshna umbrosa)		1
Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum)	1

	Oct 7 - sunny, 77F

Slender Spreadwing (Lestes rectangularis)	5
Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita)		4
Shadow Darner (Aeshna umbrosa)		1
Blue-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum ambiguum)		7	
Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum)	1

Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi.net
http://ponddamsel.phanfare.com
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/






Subject: NC mystery damsel photo
From: "birdranger" <cbockhahn4 AT earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 19:10:11 -0400
Wake County, NC, any ID help appreciated

Thanks! The link to #1 is www.flickr.com/photos/longspur/3691233243 .
ALi
Subject: Ovipositing CGD; migrants
From: VLDELOACH AT aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 13:30:19 EDT
We observed a Common Green Darner ovipositing up in the N. GA mountains  
(Towns Co.) on September 25:
 
 
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/3968347693/_ 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/3968347693/) 
 
After I took these shots, she flew to the middle of the pond and began  
ovipositing there, only to be almost immediately taken by a fish or  turtle.  
On that date there were still a number of Swamp Spreadwings at the  pond, a 
few summer odes such as Widow Skimmers, and 4 male Autumn  Meadowhawks - 
which we had not seen there earlier in the season.
 
The only other odes I've seen recently have been Blue-faced Meadowhawks  
(tandem shot from 9-24 below), Common Green Darners away from water and 
presumed  migrants, a resting Wandering Glider, and one Shadow Darner (ID'd by 
Glenn  Corbiere (thanks!)):
   
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/3950822457/_ 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/3950822457/) 
 
The Blue-faced Meadowhawks were at their favored wet meadow in our  
subdivision as recently as 10-3 obelisking on a cool sunny day as nearby  
butterflies struggled to warm their wings.
 
Vicki DeLoach
Woodstock, GA

 

 
 
In a message dated 9/28/2009 11:26:11 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dennispaulson AT comcast.net writes:

 
 
 
Chris,  


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species  
extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. 

I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They 
are  breeding in numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I 
wonder how far north that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to 

put  together that story from all the observers we have in the field now.


Dennis




On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:



 
 
 
A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to  scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean  Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old  neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to  join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded  sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina  Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking  for boggy 
spots where I  might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I  saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late  flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go  back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I  failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There  have 
been a couple hard  rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in  places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I  "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half  hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The  list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or  Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green  Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner,  poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds  of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted  Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted  about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen  odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I  would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group  that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple  times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5  "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group  for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more  normal one-or-two-individulooked differe 
a-pair type  scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from  the usual 
ponds I visit.  It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other  dragonflies.ot

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to  tread water through last 
week's  floods.

CH

************************************************************************
Christopher  E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC  29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
_http://ww2.coastal.http://ww2http://ww_ 
(http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm) 

The  whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves,  and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell
















 
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
_dennispaulson AT dennispauls_ (mailto:dennispaulson AT comcast.net) 






Subject: Re: Meadowhawk it was not. Thanks!
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 23:14:22 -0400

Hi Dennis,

Thanks a lot for your help!  I've now gone and renamed the photos in my
album.  This is a great way for me to learn them...
Trying to figure what is what from the books I have has proved very
challenging.  Differences can seem quite subtle sometimes.  I guess it will
get easier with doing it.

It is always a thrill to see those red male Scarlet Skimmers here along the
canal.  :o)

Jan


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dennis Paulson
To: Jan Roxburgh
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Meadowhawk


Hi, Jan.


Those yellow dragons are female and/or immature Scarlet Skimmers. This is 
the only introduced (from Asia) species of odonate in North America. The 
males are gorgeous scarlet red. In fact I see you also photographed a male. 
I suppose the reason the yellow ones just turned up, is because they are 
just emerging from somewhere nearby.


Both of your damelflies are Rambur's Forktails, the orange one a female. 
Dragonfly 0012 is a male Metallic Pennant. Dragon blue is a male Blue 
Dasher. Dragon yellow stripes is a young male Band-winged Dragonlet. 
Dragonfly pose is a female Blue Dasher.


There are no meadowhawks in southern Florida (except for the rare visitation 
of migrant Variegated Meadowhawks, usually along the Gulf coast in the 
winter).


Dennis

Subject: Re: Meadowhawk
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 22:07:50 -0400 (GMT-04:00)




Subject: Re:  Meadowhawk
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 18:33:41 -0700
Hi, Jan.

Those yellow dragons are female and/or immature Scarlet Skimmers. This  
is the only introduced (from Asia) species of odonate in North  
America. The males are gorgeous scarlet red. In fact I see you also  
photographed a male. I suppose the reason the yellow ones just turned  
up, is because they are just emerging from somewhere nearby.

Both of your damelflies are Rambur's Forktails, the orange one a  
female. Dragonfly 0012 is a male Metallic Pennant. Dragon blue is a  
male Blue Dasher. Dragon yellow stripes is a young male Band-winged  
Dragonlet. Dragonfly pose is a female Blue Dasher.

There are no meadowhawks in southern Florida (except for the rare  
visitation of migrant Variegated Meadowhawks, usually along the Gulf  
coast in the winter).

Dennis

On Oct 5, 2009, at 8:55 AM, Jan Roxburgh wrote:

> Just had a lot of these yellow dragons turn up to keep the Halloween
> Pennants and a few others company... female saffronwinged meadowhawk  
> maybe?
> They look quite amazing when flying around and catching the  
> sunlight... like
> gleaming gold. This one posed long enough for a photo. Will add to Jan
> photo album on the group.
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: meadowhawk
From: Greg Dodge <grdodge AT embarqmail.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 12:19:24 -0400
First of the season Autumn Meadowhawk on 10/3/09 at NC Museum of Life  
+ Science, Durham, NC, perched on willow leaf in the Wetlands.

Greg Dodge
Hillsborough, NC
www.ncmls.org/learn-about/dodgejournal

--------------------------------------------------------


Subject: Meadowhawk
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 11:55:15 -0400
Just had a lot of these yellow dragons turn up to keep the Halloween 
Pennants and a few others company...  female saffronwinged meadowhawk maybe? 
They look quite amazing when flying around and catching the sunlight... like 
gleaming gold.  This one posed long enough for a photo.  Will add to Jan 
photo album on the group.
Subject: Lynches River County Park, Florence Co., South Carolina
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 16:01:20 -0400
Went camping with friends and family this weekend by the Lynches River.

Saw only 5 species of odes:

Ebony Jewelwing, Calopteryx maculata - 2
Powdered Dancer, Argia moesta - 2
Fawn Darner, Boyeria vinosa - 6
Russett-tipped Clubtail, Stylurus plagiatus - 3
Georgia River Cruiser, Macromia illinoisensis georgina - 2

But it was a lovely spot and any running-water odes are always a  
pleasure.

The very de luxe nature center had a couple display cases of insects.   
Of the three dragonflies in the case, two were ordinary, but one was a  
Neurocordulia (Shadowdragon; I'd need to visit with a book and get a  
better look to say which).

Since two in our party were aquatic invertebrate professionals, we  
also drug some nets through various parts of the river and found all  
sorts of cool aquatic bugs, some of which were odes as well.

CH

************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

"Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do so"
- Bertrand Russell

Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:46:22 -0700 (PDT)
OK, your Sympetrum answer makes me happy. As for the Anax, I wasn't actually 
thinkig of them going as far inland as the Great Basin, just away from the 
coast - perhaps over the Willamette or Central Valleys or, as I said, pushed up 
againstl the high mountains. 

 
Mike

--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" , 
TexOdes AT yahoogroups.com 

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 1:42 PM


I probably didn't make it clear that the corruptum flights are seen only during 
the rather uncommon situation of easterly winds. Indeed the normal situation is 
for winds to be from the west-southwest for much of the year, but at times a 
high-pressure zone will situate itself in the interior and we'll get a 
northeasterly flow. That's when people see the meadowhawks on the coast. 
Presumably they're spread all over the landscape at other times. But we don't 
see any evidence of Anax migration in Washington, and this may be because we're 
just near enough to the northern edge of its range that there aren't enough of 
them to show up as a phenomenon. We see no hint of a spring "migration" in 
either species, just arrival on breeding grounds. 



I don't know of any accounts of migrating dragonflies anywhere between the 
Pacific states and the Great Plains except one at Reno, Nevada, with 
dragonflies heading into the Sierras. 




Dennis




On Sep 30, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Mike May wrote:







Dennis,
 
If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd expect 
western Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate along the western 
face of the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes, again, that prevailing winds 
are from the west, i.e., in your case away from the coast. My only reason for 
that assumption is that westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide 
and year-round, but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states 
in late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?) 
areas, would cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If 
my Anax scenario is correct, though, the question becomes, why are S. 
corruptum mainly along the coast? 


--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM




Mike,


It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant of note is 
the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every fall numbers of them 
accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast, from southwestern Washington 
south to central Oregon at least. I don't know why there are no such reports 
from California, but perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are 
certainly plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These 
accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/minute 
passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds that presumably 
push migrating dragonflies out to the coast. 



Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught by 
fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with Sympetrum 
corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally settled on the water, 
unable to get back to land. The salmon were having a field day, although I know 
I was only given the stomachs with dragonflies in them. 



I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington mountains 
in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they were all immatures 
and more or less blanketed the landscape, not associated with water. Some of 
them were in southbound flight. It's very episodic, though, not a dependable 
occurrence and presumably strongly affected by weather patterns. 



Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius, except 
occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green darners are 
nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this region. But I and others 
have seen great numbers of the darners in northern and central California 
during the fall, surely in southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, 
off San Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm 
encouraging them to get them published. 



Dennis



On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:












There are actually many records of migration away from coastal areas. For 
example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen with some regularity 
at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there 
are regular accumulations of vast numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and 
sometimes quite large movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. 
For that matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or 
shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common spectacular 
movements observed, but my guess is that's because prevailing westerly winds 
tend to cause migrants to drift eastward until they reach large expanses of 
water. Don't know how that plays out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis? 

 
Mike May

--- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:


From: Bruce Grimes 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Marion Dobbs" 
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM








Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners..  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:


From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM




PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 





Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi. net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/


"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 






Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.. mamomi.net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
 
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 





On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

 

Chris,


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT  comcast.net



. 

















-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net














-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net






      

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:46:22 -0700 (PDT)
OK, your Sympetrum answer makes me happy. As for the Anax, I wasn't actually 
thinkig of them going as far inland as the Great Basin, just away from the 
coast - perhaps over the Willamette or Central Valleys or, as I said, pushed up 
againstl the high mountains. 

 
Mike

--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" , 
TexOdes AT yahoogroups.com 

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 1:42 PM


I probably didn't make it clear that the corruptum flights are seen only during 
the rather uncommon situation of easterly winds. Indeed the normal situation is 
for winds to be from the west-southwest for much of the year, but at times a 
high-pressure zone will situate itself in the interior and we'll get a 
northeasterly flow. That's when people see the meadowhawks on the coast. 
Presumably they're spread all over the landscape at other times. But we don't 
see any evidence of Anax migration in Washington, and this may be because we're 
just near enough to the northern edge of its range that there aren't enough of 
them to show up as a phenomenon. We see no hint of a spring "migration" in 
either species, just arrival on breeding grounds. 



I don't know of any accounts of migrating dragonflies anywhere between the 
Pacific states and the Great Plains except one at Reno, Nevada, with 
dragonflies heading into the Sierras. 




Dennis




On Sep 30, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Mike May wrote:







Dennis,
 
If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd expect 
western Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate along the western 
face of the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes, again, that prevailing winds 
are from the west, i.e., in your case away from the coast. My only reason for 
that assumption is that westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide 
and year-round, but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states 
in late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?) 
areas, would cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If 
my Anax scenario is correct, though, the question becomes, why are S. 
corruptum mainly along the coast? 


--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM




Mike,


It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant of note is 
the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every fall numbers of them 
accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast, from southwestern Washington 
south to central Oregon at least. I don't know why there are no such reports 
from California, but perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are 
certainly plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These 
accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/minute 
passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds that presumably 
push migrating dragonflies out to the coast. 



Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught by 
fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with Sympetrum 
corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally settled on the water, 
unable to get back to land. The salmon were having a field day, although I know 
I was only given the stomachs with dragonflies in them. 



I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington mountains 
in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they were all immatures 
and more or less blanketed the landscape, not associated with water. Some of 
them were in southbound flight. It's very episodic, though, not a dependable 
occurrence and presumably strongly affected by weather patterns. 



Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius, except 
occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green darners are 
nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this region. But I and others 
have seen great numbers of the darners in northern and central California 
during the fall, surely in southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, 
off San Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm 
encouraging them to get them published. 



Dennis



On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:












There are actually many records of migration away from coastal areas. For 
example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen with some regularity 
at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there 
are regular accumulations of vast numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and 
sometimes quite large movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. 
For that matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or 
shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common spectacular 
movements observed, but my guess is that's because prevailing westerly winds 
tend to cause migrants to drift eastward until they reach large expanses of 
water. Don't know how that plays out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis? 

 
Mike May

--- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:


From: Bruce Grimes 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Marion Dobbs" 
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM








Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners..  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:


From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM




PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 





Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi. net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/


"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 






Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.. mamomi.net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
 
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 





On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

 

Chris,


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT  comcast.net



. 

















-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net














-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net






      
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:42:31 -0700
I probably didn't make it clear that the corruptum flights are seen  
only during the rather uncommon situation of easterly winds. Indeed  
the normal situation is for winds to be from the west-southwest for  
much of the year, but at times a high-pressure zone will situate  
itself in the interior and we'll get a northeasterly flow. That's when  
people see the meadowhawks on the coast. Presumably they're spread all  
over the landscape at other times. But we don't see any evidence of  
Anax migration in Washington, and this may be because we're just near  
enough to the northern edge of its range that there aren't enough of  
them to show up as a phenomenon. We see no hint of a spring  
"migration" in either species, just arrival on breeding grounds.

I don't know of any accounts of migrating dragonflies anywhere between  
the Pacific states and the Great Plains except one at Reno, Nevada,  
with dragonflies heading into the Sierras.

Dennis

On Sep 30, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Mike May wrote:

> Dennis,
>
> If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd  
> expect western Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate  
> along the western face of the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes,  
> again, that prevailing winds are from the west, i.e., in your case  
> away from the coast. My only reason for that assumption is that  
> westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide and year-round,  
> but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states in  
> late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?)  
> areas, would cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If my  
> Anax scenario is correct, though, the question becomes, why are S.  
> corruptum mainly along the coast?
>
> --- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:
>
> From: Dennis Paulson 
> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
> To: "Mike May" 
> Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
> Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM
>
>
>
> Mike,
>
> It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant  
> of note is the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every  
> fall numbers of them accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast,  
> from southwestern Washington south to central Oregon at least. I  
> don't know why there are no such reports from California, but  
> perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are certainly  
> plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These  
> accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/ 
> minute passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds  
> that presumably push migrating dragonflies out to the coast.
>
> Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught  
> by fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with  
> Sympetrum corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally  
> settled on the water, unable to get back to land. The salmon were  
> having a field day, although I know I was only given the stomachs  
> with dragonflies in them.
>
> I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington  
> mountains in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they  
> were all immatures and more or less blanketed the landscape, not  
> associated with water. Some of them were in southbound flight. It's  
> very episodic, though, not a dependable occurrence and presumably  
> strongly affected by weather patterns.
>
> Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius,  
> except occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green  
> darners are nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this  
> region. But I and others have seen great numbers of the darners in  
> northern and central California during the fall, surely in  
> southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, off San  
> Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm  
> encouraging them to get them published.
>
> Dennis
>
> On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:
>
>>
>> There are actually many records of migration away from coastal  
>> areas. For example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen  
>> with some regularity at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the  
>> Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there are regular accumulations of vast  
>> numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and sometimes quite large  
>> movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. For that  
>> matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains  
>> or shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common  
>> spectacular movements observed, but my guess is that's because  
>> prevailing westerly winds tend to cause migrants to drift eastward  
>> until they reach large expanses of water. Don't know how that plays  
>> out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis?
>>
>> Mike May
>>
>> --- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:
>>
>> From: Bruce Grimes 
>> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
>> To: "Marion Dobbs" 
>> Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
>> Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM
>>
>>
>>
>> Marion,
>> A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near  
>> mp 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.   
>> In 1992, he arrived at the site and sat for several hours with  
>> approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per minute flying by the  
>> entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the migration of  
>> dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's  
>> field guide became available were most species identified.
>> In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented  
>> lots of dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and  
>> Aeshna) migrating, while keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds,  
>> and butterflies also migrating.
>> The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there  
>> is a large open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with  
>> another 100 yds or so (fairly level) to the forest behind (south)  
>> of us.  This gives a much better opportunity to observe the flying  
>> insects, and more time for ID.
>> I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs  
>> away from the coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area,  
>> with sudden spring occurrence of various species especially Common  
>> Green Darner, but King Skimmers as well, including Painted  
>> (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been seen (identified  
>> once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site.
>> Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely  
>> limited this year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded  
>> only a few Green Darners..  We later heard from an occasional  
>> participant that he had many hundreds by his house in Ararat, to  
>> the south and below the ridge line.
>> Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L.  
>> pulchella).  This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum  
>> probably only in the 30's per day, but very regular in appearance.
>> Bruce Grimes
>>
>> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:
>>
>> From: Marion Dobbs 
>> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
>> To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
>> Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  
>> 
>> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM
>>
>>
>>
>> PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal  
>> migrants. I always think of dragonflies as migrating along the  
>> coastline - when I think of dragonfly migration at all. Are these  
>> not the common pathways?
>>
>> Marion Dobbs
>> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
>> spreadwing AT mac.com
>> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
>> http://www.mamomi. net
>> http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
>> http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
>>
>> "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one  
>> another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be  
>> heard as well as our voices."__Bob Greene, author.
>>
>>
>> Marion Dobbs
>> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
>> spreadwing AT mac.com
>> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
>> http://www.. mamomi.net
>> http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
>> http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
>>
>> "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the  
>> expert's mind there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Chris,
>>>
>>> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are  
>>> the ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding  
>>> in this species extends at least as far north as the northern  
>>> Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking  
>>> maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers  
>>> in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far  
>>> north that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to  
>>> put together that story from all the observers we have in the  
>>> field now.
>>>
>>> Dennis
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to  
>>>> scoot
>>>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>>>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an  
>>>> hour
>>>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging  
>>>> (well, a
>>>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>>>> couple Carolina Bays.
>>>>
>>>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for  
>>>> boggy
>>>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>>>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted  
>>>> Skimmers.
>>>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>>>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>>>> documentation.
>>>>
>>>> I failed.
>>>>
>>>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>>>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle  
>>>> deep,
>>>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>>>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>>>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't  
>>>> know, a
>>>> quarter as many?
>>>>
>>>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>>>>
>>>> Swamp Spreadwings
>>>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few  
>>>> females
>>>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>>>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>>>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>>>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>>>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>>>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>>>> Painted Skimmer
>>>> Blue Dasher
>>>> Wandering Glider
>>>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>>>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>>>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>>>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while,  
>>>> enough
>>>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple  
>>>> tandem
>>>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units  
>>>> were
>>>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so  
>>>> qualitatively it
>>>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als- 
>>>> harassing-
>>>> a-pair type scenario.
>>>>
>>>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the  
>>>> usual
>>>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>>>> other dragonflies. ..
>>>>
>>>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through  
>>>> last
>>>> week's floods.
>>>>
>>>> CH
>>>>
>>>> ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *********  
>>>> ********* ******
>>>> Christopher E. Hill
>>>> Biology Department
>>>> Coastal Carolina University
>>>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>>>> chill AT coastal.edu
>>>> http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm
>>>>
>>>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are  
>>>> always
>>>> so
>>>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>>>> - Bertrand Russell
>>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Dennis Paulson
>>> 1724 NE 98 St.
>>> Seattle, WA 98115
>>> 206-528-1382
>>> dennispaulson AT  comcast.net
>>>
>>>
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:42:31 -0700
I probably didn't make it clear that the corruptum flights are seen  
only during the rather uncommon situation of easterly winds. Indeed  
the normal situation is for winds to be from the west-southwest for  
much of the year, but at times a high-pressure zone will situate  
itself in the interior and we'll get a northeasterly flow. That's when  
people see the meadowhawks on the coast. Presumably they're spread all  
over the landscape at other times. But we don't see any evidence of  
Anax migration in Washington, and this may be because we're just near  
enough to the northern edge of its range that there aren't enough of  
them to show up as a phenomenon. We see no hint of a spring  
"migration" in either species, just arrival on breeding grounds.

I don't know of any accounts of migrating dragonflies anywhere between  
the Pacific states and the Great Plains except one at Reno, Nevada,  
with dragonflies heading into the Sierras.

Dennis

On Sep 30, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Mike May wrote:

> Dennis,
>
> If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd  
> expect western Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate  
> along the western face of the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes,  
> again, that prevailing winds are from the west, i.e., in your case  
> away from the coast. My only reason for that assumption is that  
> westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide and year-round,  
> but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states in  
> late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?)  
> areas, would cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If my  
> Anax scenario is correct, though, the question becomes, why are S.  
> corruptum mainly along the coast?
>
> --- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:
>
> From: Dennis Paulson 
> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
> To: "Mike May" 
> Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
> Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM
>
>
>
> Mike,
>
> It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant  
> of note is the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every  
> fall numbers of them accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast,  
> from southwestern Washington south to central Oregon at least. I  
> don't know why there are no such reports from California, but  
> perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are certainly  
> plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These  
> accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/ 
> minute passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds  
> that presumably push migrating dragonflies out to the coast.
>
> Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught  
> by fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with  
> Sympetrum corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally  
> settled on the water, unable to get back to land. The salmon were  
> having a field day, although I know I was only given the stomachs  
> with dragonflies in them.
>
> I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington  
> mountains in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they  
> were all immatures and more or less blanketed the landscape, not  
> associated with water. Some of them were in southbound flight. It's  
> very episodic, though, not a dependable occurrence and presumably  
> strongly affected by weather patterns.
>
> Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius,  
> except occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green  
> darners are nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this  
> region. But I and others have seen great numbers of the darners in  
> northern and central California during the fall, surely in  
> southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, off San  
> Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm  
> encouraging them to get them published.
>
> Dennis
>
> On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:
>
>>
>> There are actually many records of migration away from coastal  
>> areas. For example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen  
>> with some regularity at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the  
>> Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there are regular accumulations of vast  
>> numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and sometimes quite large  
>> movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. For that  
>> matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains  
>> or shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common  
>> spectacular movements observed, but my guess is that's because  
>> prevailing westerly winds tend to cause migrants to drift eastward  
>> until they reach large expanses of water. Don't know how that plays  
>> out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis?
>>
>> Mike May
>>
>> --- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:
>>
>> From: Bruce Grimes 
>> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
>> To: "Marion Dobbs" 
>> Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
>> Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM
>>
>>
>>
>> Marion,
>> A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near  
>> mp 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.   
>> In 1992, he arrived at the site and sat for several hours with  
>> approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per minute flying by the  
>> entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the migration of  
>> dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's  
>> field guide became available were most species identified.
>> In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented  
>> lots of dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and  
>> Aeshna) migrating, while keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds,  
>> and butterflies also migrating.
>> The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there  
>> is a large open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with  
>> another 100 yds or so (fairly level) to the forest behind (south)  
>> of us.  This gives a much better opportunity to observe the flying  
>> insects, and more time for ID.
>> I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs  
>> away from the coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area,  
>> with sudden spring occurrence of various species especially Common  
>> Green Darner, but King Skimmers as well, including Painted  
>> (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been seen (identified  
>> once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site.
>> Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely  
>> limited this year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded  
>> only a few Green Darners..  We later heard from an occasional  
>> participant that he had many hundreds by his house in Ararat, to  
>> the south and below the ridge line.
>> Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L.  
>> pulchella).  This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum  
>> probably only in the 30's per day, but very regular in appearance.
>> Bruce Grimes
>>
>> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:
>>
>> From: Marion Dobbs 
>> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
>> To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
>> Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  
>> 
>> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM
>>
>>
>>
>> PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal  
>> migrants. I always think of dragonflies as migrating along the  
>> coastline - when I think of dragonfly migration at all. Are these  
>> not the common pathways?
>>
>> Marion Dobbs
>> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
>> spreadwing AT mac.com
>> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
>> http://www.mamomi. net
>> http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
>> http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
>>
>> "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one  
>> another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be  
>> heard as well as our voices."__Bob Greene, author.
>>
>>
>> Marion Dobbs
>> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
>> spreadwing AT mac.com
>> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
>> http://www.. mamomi.net
>> http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
>> http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
>>
>> "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the  
>> expert's mind there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Chris,
>>>
>>> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are  
>>> the ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding  
>>> in this species extends at least as far north as the northern  
>>> Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking  
>>> maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers  
>>> in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far  
>>> north that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to  
>>> put together that story from all the observers we have in the  
>>> field now.
>>>
>>> Dennis
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to  
>>>> scoot
>>>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>>>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an  
>>>> hour
>>>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging  
>>>> (well, a
>>>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>>>> couple Carolina Bays.
>>>>
>>>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for  
>>>> boggy
>>>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>>>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted  
>>>> Skimmers.
>>>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>>>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>>>> documentation.
>>>>
>>>> I failed.
>>>>
>>>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>>>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle  
>>>> deep,
>>>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>>>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>>>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't  
>>>> know, a
>>>> quarter as many?
>>>>
>>>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>>>>
>>>> Swamp Spreadwings
>>>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few  
>>>> females
>>>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>>>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>>>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>>>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>>>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>>>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>>>> Painted Skimmer
>>>> Blue Dasher
>>>> Wandering Glider
>>>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>>>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>>>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>>>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while,  
>>>> enough
>>>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple  
>>>> tandem
>>>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units  
>>>> were
>>>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so  
>>>> qualitatively it
>>>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als- 
>>>> harassing-
>>>> a-pair type scenario.
>>>>
>>>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the  
>>>> usual
>>>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>>>> other dragonflies. ..
>>>>
>>>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through  
>>>> last
>>>> week's floods.
>>>>
>>>> CH
>>>>
>>>> ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *********  
>>>> ********* ******
>>>> Christopher E. Hill
>>>> Biology Department
>>>> Coastal Carolina University
>>>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>>>> chill AT coastal.edu
>>>> http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm
>>>>
>>>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are  
>>>> always
>>>> so
>>>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>>>> - Bertrand Russell
>>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Dennis Paulson
>>> 1724 NE 98 St.
>>> Seattle, WA 98115
>>> 206-528-1382
>>> dennispaulson AT  comcast.net
>>>
>>>
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Marion Dobbs <spreadwing AT mac.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:31:57 -0400
Thank you, Bruce, et al. This has been a fascinating and informative  
thread. I had no idea how very little I know about dragonfly migration  
and how much more I'd like to know. It all makes me want to go out and  
watch the skies. Of course, that, like exuviae collection, would  
entail a large time commitment, as Mike points out. Observation of  
dragonfly movements I'm sure are sporadic at best, and it's certainly  
understandable why regular sightings occur at hawk watches and sites  
frequented by birders on a regular basis.

I'm very glad to know what to watch for and when and will certainly be  
paying closer attention and taking better notes in future. Thanks to  
Dennis and Mike and Bruce and everyone else for pointing out how the  
observations of us ordinary oders can contribute in some way to our  
broader knowledge of odonata and, by extension, the greater natural  
world.

Marion Dobbs


On Sep 29, 2009, at 10:05 AM, Bruce Grimes wrote:

> Marion,
> A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp  
> 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In  
> 1992, he arrived at the site and sat for several hours with approx  
> 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per minute flying by the entire  
> time.  Since that time, he began noting the migration of dragonflies  
> at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's field guide  
> became available were most species identified.
> In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots  
> of dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna)  
> migrating, while keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and  
> butterflies also migrating.
> The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is  
> a large open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with  
> another 100 yds or so (fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of  
> us.  This gives a much better opportunity to observe the flying  
> insects, and more time for ID.
> I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away  
> from the coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with  
> sudden spring occurrence of various species especially Common Green  
> Darner, but King Skimmers as well, including Painted (Libellula  
> semifasciata).  Painted has also been seen (identified once) in fall  
> migration at the Rocky Knob site.
> Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely  
> limited this year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded  
> only a few Green Darners..  We later heard from an occasional  
> participant that he had many hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the  
> south and below the ridge line.
> Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L.  
> pulchella).  This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum  
> probably only in the 30's per day, but very regular in appearance.
> Bruce Grimes
>
> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:
>
>
>
> 
>
>
>
>

Marion Dobbs
9 Bridlewood Lane
Rome GA  30165
ecurlew AT mac.com
http://www.mamomi.net
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
http://ponddamsel.phanfare.com/

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who at  
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at  
the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that  
his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know  
neither victory nor defeat." _Theodore Roosevelt, 23 Apr 1910.
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:53:09 -0700 (PDT)
Dennis,
 
If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd expect western 
Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate along the western face of 
the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes, again, that prevailing winds are from 
the west, i.e., in your case away from the coast. My only reason for that 
assumption is that westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide and 
year-round, but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states in 
late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?) areas, would 
cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If my Anax scenario is 
correct, though, the question becomes, why are S. corruptum mainly along the 
coast? 


--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM








Mike,


It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant of note is 
the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every fall numbers of them 
accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast, from southwestern Washington 
south to central Oregon at least. I don't know why there are no such reports 
from California, but perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are 
certainly plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These 
accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/minute 
passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds that presumably 
push migrating dragonflies out to the coast. 



Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught by 
fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with Sympetrum 
corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally settled on the water, 
unable to get back to land. The salmon were having a field day, although I know 
I was only given the stomachs with dragonflies in them. 



I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington mountains 
in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they were all immatures 
and more or less blanketed the landscape, not associated with water. Some of 
them were in southbound flight. It's very episodic, though, not a dependable 
occurrence and presumably strongly affected by weather patterns. 



Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius, except 
occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green darners are 
nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this region. But I and others 
have seen great numbers of the darners in northern and central California 
during the fall, surely in southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, 
off San Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm 
encouraging them to get them published. 



Dennis



On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:












There are actually many records of migration away from coastal areas. For 
example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen with some regularity 
at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there 
are regular accumulations of vast numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and 
sometimes quite large movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. 
For that matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or 
shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common spectacular 
movements observed, but my guess is that's because prevailing westerly winds 
tend to cause migrants to drift eastward until they reach large expanses of 
water. Don't know how that plays out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis? 

 
Mike May

--- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:


From: Bruce Grimes 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Marion Dobbs" 
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM








Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners..  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:


From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM




PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 





Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi. net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/


"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 






Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.. mamomi.net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
 
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 





On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

 

Chris,


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT  comcast.net



. 

















-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net











      

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:53:09 -0700 (PDT)
Dennis,
 
If my understanding of what happens in the East is correct, I'd expect western 
Anax to migrate inland, perhaps even to accumulate along the western face of 
the Cascades and Sierras. That assumes, again, that prevailing winds are from 
the west, i.e., in your case away from the coast. My only reason for that 
assumption is that westerly flow is the rule in mid-latitudes worldwide and 
year-round, but I don't know if conditions peculiar to the Pacific states in 
late summer, e.g., high pressure ridges inland over hot (desert?) areas, would 
cause a substantial deviation from that pattern. If my Anax scenario is 
correct, though, the question becomes, why are S. corruptum mainly along the 
coast? 


--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Mike May" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 12:30 PM








Mike,


It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant of note is 
the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every fall numbers of them 
accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast, from southwestern Washington 
south to central Oregon at least. I don't know why there are no such reports 
from California, but perhaps they're being seen and not reported. There are 
certainly plenty of birders on the coast there during the fall. These 
accumulations in Oregon (sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/minute 
passing a coastal site) usually occur during easterly winds that presumably 
push migrating dragonflies out to the coast. 



Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught by 
fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with Sympetrum 
corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally settled on the water, 
unable to get back to land. The salmon were having a field day, although I know 
I was only given the stomachs with dragonflies in them. 



I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington mountains 
in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they were all immatures 
and more or less blanketed the landscape, not associated with water. Some of 
them were in southbound flight. It's very episodic, though, not a dependable 
occurrence and presumably strongly affected by weather patterns. 



Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius, except 
occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green darners are 
nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this region. But I and others 
have seen great numbers of the darners in northern and central California 
during the fall, surely in southbound migration. Bird people on the Farallons, 
off San Francisco, have been keeping records of odonates for years, and I'm 
encouraging them to get them published. 



Dennis



On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:












There are actually many records of migration away from coastal areas. For 
example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen with some regularity 
at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there 
are regular accumulations of vast numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and 
sometimes quite large movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. 
For that matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or 
shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common spectacular 
movements observed, but my guess is that's because prevailing westerly winds 
tend to cause migrants to drift eastward until they reach large expanses of 
water. Don't know how that plays out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis? 

 
Mike May

--- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:


From: Bruce Grimes 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Marion Dobbs" 
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM








Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata) .  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners..  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:


From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogro ups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill"  

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM




PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 





Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi. net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/


"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 






Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.. mamomi.net
http://albums. phanfare. com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs. smugmug.com/
 
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 





On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

 

Chris,


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT  comcast.net



. 

















-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net











      
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:30:55 -0700
Mike,

It plays out pretty much the same on the Pacific coast. Our migrant of  
note is the Variegated Meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, and every fall  
numbers of them accumulate on some days on the Pacific coast, from  
southwestern Washington south to central Oregon at least. I don't know  
why there are no such reports from California, but perhaps they're  
being seen and not reported. There are certainly plenty of birders on  
the coast there during the fall. These accumulations in Oregon  
(sometimes vast numbers, with 50-100 or more/minute passing a coastal  
site) usually occur during easterly winds that presumably push  
migrating dragonflies out to the coast.

Many years ago I identified stomach contents from coho salmon caught  
by fishermen off the Oregon coast, and they were all filled with  
Sympetrum corruptum! Presumably they had blown offshore and finally  
settled on the water, unable to get back to land. The salmon were  
having a field day, although I know I was only given the stomachs with  
dragonflies in them.

I have seen Variegated Meadowhawks also in numbers in the Washington  
mountains in fall while hiking. These were surely migrants, as they  
were all immatures and more or less blanketed the landscape, not  
associated with water. Some of them were in southbound flight. It's  
very episodic, though, not a dependable occurrence and presumably  
strongly affected by weather patterns.

Oddly, we don't have such coastal observations for Anax junius, except  
occasional sightings. Perhaps the simple reason is that green darners  
are nowhere nearly as common as the meadowhawks in this region. But I  
and others have seen great numbers of the darners in northern and  
central California during the fall, surely in southbound migration.  
Bird people on the Farallons, off San Francisco, have been keeping  
records of odonates for years, and I'm encouraging them to get them  
published.

Dennis

On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:41 AM, Mike May wrote:

>
> There are actually many records of migration away from coastal  
> areas. For example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen  
> with some regularity at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the  
> Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there are regular accumulations of vast  
> numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and sometimes quite large  
> movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. For that  
> matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or  
> shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common  
> spectacular movements observed, but my guess is that's because  
> prevailing westerly winds tend to cause migrants to drift eastward  
> until they reach large expanses of water. Don't know how that plays  
> out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis?
>
> Mike May
>
> --- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:
>
> From: Bruce Grimes 
> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
> To: "Marion Dobbs" 
> Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM
>
>
>
> Marion,
> A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp  
> 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In  
> 1992, he arrived at the site and sat for several hours with approx  
> 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per minute flying by the entire  
> time.  Since that time, he began noting the migration of dragonflies  
> at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's field guide  
> became available were most species identified.
> In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots  
> of dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna)  
> migrating, while keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and  
> butterflies also migrating.
> The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is  
> a large open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with  
> another 100 yds or so (fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of  
> us.  This gives a much better opportunity to observe the flying  
> insects, and more time for ID.
> I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away  
> from the coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with  
> sudden spring occurrence of various species especially Common Green  
> Darner, but King Skimmers as well, including Painted (Libellula  
> semifasciata).  Painted has also been seen (identified once) in fall  
> migration at the Rocky Knob site.
> Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely  
> limited this year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded  
> only a few Green Darners..  We later heard from an occasional  
> participant that he had many hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the  
> south and below the ridge line.
> Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L.  
> pulchella).  This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum  
> probably only in the 30's per day, but very regular in appearance.
> Bruce Grimes
>
> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:
>
> From: Marion Dobbs 
> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
> To: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
> Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill" 
 >
> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM
>
>
>
> PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal  
> migrants. I always think of dragonflies as migrating along the  
> coastline - when I think of dragonfly migration at all. Are these  
> not the common pathways?
>
> Marion Dobbs
> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
> spreadwing AT mac.com
> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
> http://www.mamomi.net
> http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
> http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
>
> "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one  
> another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be  
> heard as well as our voices."__Bob Greene, author.
>
>
> Marion Dobbs
> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
> spreadwing AT mac.com
> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
> http://www..mamomi.net
> http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
> http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
>
> "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the  
> expert's mind there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki
>
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>
>>
>> Chris,
>>
>> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
>> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in  
>> this species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal  
>> Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it  
>> was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south  
>> Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north that  
>> behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together  
>> that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>>
>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>>
>>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to  
>>> scoot
>>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour
>>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging  
>>> (well, a
>>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>>> couple Carolina Bays.
>>>
>>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for  
>>> boggy
>>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted  
>>> Skimmers.
>>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>>> documentation.
>>>
>>> I failed.
>>>
>>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle  
>>> deep,
>>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't  
>>> know, a
>>> quarter as many?
>>>
>>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>>>
>>> Swamp Spreadwings
>>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few  
>>> females
>>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>>> Painted Skimmer
>>> Blue Dasher
>>> Wandering Glider
>>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while,  
>>> enough
>>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple  
>>> tandem
>>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were
>>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively  
>>> it
>>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als- 
>>> harassing-
>>> a-pair type scenario.
>>>
>>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual
>>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>>> other dragonflies. ..
>>>
>>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through  
>>> last
>>> week's floods.
>>>
>>> CH
>>>
>>> ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *********  
>>> ********* ******
>>> Christopher E. Hill
>>> Biology Department
>>> Coastal Carolina University
>>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>>> chill AT coastal.edu
>>> http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm
>>>
>>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are  
>>> always
>>> so
>>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>>> - Bertrand Russell
>>>
>>
>> -----
>> Dennis Paulson
>> 1724 NE 98 St.
>> Seattle, WA 98115
>> 206-528-1382
>> dennispaulson AT  comcast.net
>>
>>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:41:18 -0700 (PDT)
There are actually many records of migration away from coastal areas. For 
example, substantial movements of Green Darners are seen with some regularity 
at Hawk Mt. in PA and at hawk watches in the Watchung "mts." in NJ. Also there 
are regular accumulations of vast numbers at. e.g., Pt. Pelee on Lake Erie and 
sometimes quite large movements around Lake Superior and down Lake Michigan. 
For that matter, swarms are sometimes seen well away from either mountains or 
shorelines. I do think coastal migrations are the most common spectacular 
movements observed, but my guess is that's because prevailing westerly winds 
tend to cause migrants to drift eastward until they reach large expanses of 
water. Don't know how that plays out on the Pacific coast, though. Dennis? 

 
Mike May

--- On Tue, 9/29/09, Bruce Grimes  wrote:


From: Bruce Grimes 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Marion Dobbs" 
Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:05 AM
















Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata).  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners..  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:


From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill" 
 

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM







PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 





Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi.net
http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/


"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 






Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www..mamomi.net
http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
 
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 





On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

  

Chris,


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT  comcast.net



. 












      
Subject: Re: Anax junius spring emergence
From: Steve Hummel <shummel AT iowatelecom.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:30:31 -0500
Hi all,
My observations in Iowa has been that Anax junius (CGDarner) has been  
by far the earliest odonate to appear in the spring, are fully mature,  
and often there are males and females flying in tandem, mating, and  
oviposition is taking place.  I've attached a photo taken on April 11,  
2006 in northern Iowa.  Snow trilliums were blooming and the pond  
still had some patches of ice.

Steve Hummel
shummel AT iowatelecom.net



On Sep 29, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

But to add to Hal's account, there is little doubt that the vast  
majority of early spring records of Common Green Darners in the  
northern part of its range are incoming migrants. The first seen are  
almost always mature males. Females are surely coming in, but they're  
harder to detect than males because they're not cruising over the water.


They may not arrive as early in Washington state (earliest date ever  
22 April, not until May in most years) as they do in the Northeast  
(commonly reported in April, but perhaps because there are more  
observers watching), but the first seen are always mature males. The  
first Anax exuviae I have found in this state usually appear some time  
after the first adults are seen, and large-scale emergence is mostly  
seen in August.


On Sep 29, 2009, at 7:41 AM, Hal White wrote:

> Josh,
>
> Rudy Raff and I reported finding Anax junius exuviae in central PA in
> late March 1964(?) I believe.
> Harold B. White, III and Rudolf A. Raff, "Early Spring Emergence of  
> Anax
> junius (Odonata: Aeschnidae) in Central Pennsylvania," Can. Ent. 102,
> 498-499 (1970).
> Philip Corbet and I had several conversations and correspondence  
> over whether or not this was a believable observation. He found it!  
> hard to
> accept. However I argued that exuviae left over from late fall could  
> not
> survive in situ over a PA winter.
>
> Hal
>
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net




Subject: Re: Anax junius spring emergence
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:35:31 -0700
But to add to Hal's account, there is little doubt that the vast  
majority of early spring records of Common Green Darners in the  
northern part of its range are incoming migrants. The first seen are  
almost always mature males. Females are surely coming in, but they're  
harder to detect than males because they're not cruising over the water.

They may not arrive as early in Washington state (earliest date ever  
22 April, not until May in most years) as they do in the Northeast  
(commonly reported in April, but perhaps because there are more  
observers watching), but the first seen are always mature males. The  
first Anax exuviae I have found in this state usually appear some time  
after the first adults are seen, and large-scale emergence is mostly  
seen in August.


On Sep 29, 2009, at 7:41 AM, Hal White wrote:

> Josh,
>
> Rudy Raff and I reported finding Anax junius exuviae in central PA in
> late March 1964(?) I believe.
> Harold B. White, III and Rudolf A. Raff, "Early Spring Emergence of  
> Anax
> junius (Odonata: Aeschnidae) in Central Pennsylvania," Can. Ent. 102,
> 498-499 (1970).
> Philip Corbet and I had several conversations and correspondence over
> whether or not this was a believable observation. He found it hard to
> accept. However I argued that exuviae left over from late fall could  
> not
> survive in situ over a PA winter.
>
> Hal
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Anax junius spring emergence
From: Hal White <halwhite AT udel.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:41:28 -0400
Josh,

Rudy Raff and I reported finding Anax junius exuviae in central PA in 
late March 1964(?) I believe.
Harold B. White, III and Rudolf A. Raff, "Early Spring Emergence of Anax 
junius (Odonata: Aeschnidae) in Central Pennsylvania," Can. Ent. 102, 
498-499 (1970).
Philip Corbet and I had several conversations and correspondence over 
whether or not this was a believable observation. He found it hard to 
accept. However I argued that exuviae left over from late fall could not 
survive in situ over a PA winter.

Hal

opihi AT mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> 
> One question I may have asked before, but forget the answer. Common 
> Green Darners are frequently the first, or one of the first, dragonflies 
> observed in the spring in several mid-Atlantic states. Are these first 
> sightings of spring returning migrants? Or are they larvae that just 
> missed the cutoff for migrating south, so overwintered in the final 
> instar, and emerged as soon as the weather was tolerable in the spring?
> 
> Josh Rose
> Amherst MA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:25:42 -0400
Hi Dennis,

Encouraged by your post, I have added just a few fairly recent photos to the 
Jan album on the group. Please forgive that they are not named. I'm not yet 
confident about connecting what I have with what is in my two books. Looks like 
a female, immature? yellow-legged meadowhawk in amongst them, but I could be 
completely wrong. If it turns out that I ever stumble upon some rarity in the 
USA, I will at least have the date and time of day recorded in the photo 
metadata. 


Jan

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dennis Paulson 
  To: jani 
  Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 1:17 PM
  Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Dragonfly parasites?

  Jan,


  >>>


 You live in an area with no resident odonatologists, although various of us 
visit there from time to time. It's an area where tropical dragonflies are 
moving in from the West Indies, so I encourage you to photograph as many kinds 
of dragonflies as you see! 



  Dennis


  On Sep 28, 2009, at 9:32 AM, jani wrote:


    Hi,

 I'm a new member living in Miami, FL. My husband and I have become keen 
dragonfly photographers over the past year. We planted a hedge of Ixora, and 
discovered that attracts quite a few dragonflies to our garden, which is nice 
and convenient, since wandering around looking all over the place for them in 
the intense heat and humidity isn't as much fun. 


 I just created an album here named Jan Roxburgh which has a couple of photos 
of a dragonfly that has two insects attached to its back. When enlarging the 
photos, we could see that they have legs, probably wings, and are attached by 
their mouths. Anyone know what those critters are, and whether they harm the 
dragonflies? I did research online, but didn't come up with much. We thought 
maybe a gnat? 


    Thanks.

    Jan





  -----
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Bruce Grimes <blue_corporal AT yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:05:51 -0700 (PDT)
Marion,
A friend of mine began a migration watch site at Rocky Knob (near mp 168 on the 
Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd Co, VA) back in the 80's.  In 1992, he arrived at the 
site and sat for several hours with approx 200 Green Darners (Anax junius) per 
minute flying by the entire time.  Since that time, he began noting the 
migration of dragonflies at the site, though not until resources like Dunkle's 
field guide became available were most species identified. 

In recent years, with only limited coverage, we have documented lots of 
dragonfly species (14, plus 2 to genus: Sympetrum and Aeshna) migrating, while 
keeping an eye out for hawks, other birds, and butterflies also migrating. 

The site is unusual for Blue Ridge hawk watch sites in that there is a large 
open upward-sloping field in front of where we sit, with another 100 yds or so 
(fairly level) to the forest behind (south) of us.  This gives a much better 
opportunity to observe the flying insects, and more time for ID. 

I guess this is a long way of saying dragonfly migration occurs away from the 
coasts.  We get the spring migrants too on our area, with sudden spring 
occurrence of various species especially Common Green Darner, but King Skimmers 
as well, including Painted (Libellula semifasciata).  Painted has also been 
seen (identified once) in fall migration at the Rocky Knob site. 

Due to various issues and weather, coverage has been extremely limited this 
year, but on a very windy day at the site, we recorded only a few Green 
Darners.  We later heard from an occasional participant that he had many 
hundreds by his house in Ararat, to the south and below the ridge line. 

Some speculation earlier about the migration of Twelve-spotted (L. pulchella).  
This is in our top 4 migrants at our site.  Maximum probably only in the 30's 
per day, but very regular in appearance. 

Bruce Grimes

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marion Dobbs  wrote:

From: Marion Dobbs 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
Cc: "Dennis Paulson" , "Chris Hill" 
 

Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:22 PM










         












PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal migrants. I 
always think of dragonflies as migrating along the coastline - when I think of 
dragonfly migration at all. Are these not the common pathways? 

 Marion DobbsRome (Floyd Co.) GAspreadwing AT mac.compond_damsel AT 
comcast..nethttp://www.mamomi.nethttp://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamselhttp://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/ 

"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- 
until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our 
voices."__Bob Greene, author. 

 
 Marion DobbsRome (Floyd Co.) GAspreadwing AT mac.compond_damsel AT 
comcast..nethttp://www.mamomi.nethttp://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamselhttp://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/ "In 
the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind 
there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki 


 
On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
        Chris,
What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 

Dennis

On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell


 -----Dennis Paulson1724 NE 98 St.Seattle, WA 98115206-528-1382dennispaulson AT  
comcast.net 


 . 	 		   
 	 	 	 	 	 	 









    
    









      
Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:48:35 -0400
Hi Josh,

Thanks for the info. We have been to Fairchild Gardens a few times but probably 
were too focused on being with guests and watching the iguanas, to notice that 
there were so many dragonflies. We will be much more observant there in future. 
We have better cameras now too. Will look into Fakahatchee Strand and 
Loxahatchee... 


What we noticed about Shark Valley was the dragons seemed really settled. 
Probably helps that they don't have to contend with regular lawn mowing 
operations like what happens in the common areas near our house. We've noticed 
"our" dragons are especially upset when their perching grasses are trimmed off 
along the edge of the canal. BTW, we get a mind-boggling number of I think it 
is Halloween Pennants perching on the grasses just yards from our home if the 
city does leave the grass trimming for awhile. Incredibly beautiful when the 
sunlight reflects of all those wings. 


Jan
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: opihi AT mindspring.com 
  To: Jan Roxburgh ; se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 10:15 PM
  Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Dragonfly parasites?



 When I was doing my dissertation field work in Florida, I had pretty good luck 
photographing dragons at Fairchild Tropical Gardens in Coral Gables, just south 
of Miami. I forget how many species I had - 15, maybe 20 - but the list 
included critters like Three-striped Dasher (Micrathyria didyma) and Caribbean 
Yellowface (Neoerythromma cultellatum). 


 I know some of the *really* exciting tropical odonates in FL were found in the 
Fakahatchee Strand. I found a good variety of species there but nothing 
Earth-shattering, but only visited once, really wish I had the chance to go 
back a few more times... 


 Loxahatchee NWR had fair diversity and absolutely astounding biomass. I was 
there once, I think in June, when Four-spotted Pennants (Brachymesia gravida) 
were emerging in numbers that officially boggled my mind. Seemed like there was 
one on every fifth blade of sawgrass, and Loxahatchee has a LOT of sawgrass! 


  Have fun,

  Josh


    -----Original Message----- 
    From: Jan Roxburgh <2jani AT comcast.net> 


 Thank you for the encouragement to photograph as many dragonflies as we see. I 
had read about the tropicals coming here to South Florida. (It's swelteringly 
hot enough I am sure!) We are just starting out now with identifying what we 
photograph. Bought two books to help.. Stokes "Beginner's Guide to 
Dragonflies", and "Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the SouthEast," 
by Beaton. 


 If there is a simple wish-list here on the group, we can be on the look-out 
for them in Miami. My husband uses a nice macro lens, so he can get up close 
and personal with them, and capture wonderful detail. I can't get as close with 
mine. 


 We have found that Shark Valley in the Everglades can be a great place to 
photograph dragons. 


    Jan
Subject: Re: Fwd: [TexOdes] Fw: [texbirds] FW: Dragonfly takes down a hummingbird
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:32:26 -0400
Youtube video of dragonflies and hummingbird at feeders . The argument looks 
very territorial to me. 

  
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxRjm_JD8QM

Jan
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dennis Paulson 
 To: Odonata-l ; se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata ; NE Odes ; 
gl_odonata AT yahoogroups.com 

  Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 6:05 PM
 Subject: [se-odonata] Fwd: [TexOdes] Fw: [texbirds] FW: Dragonfly takes down a 
hummingbird 





 I thought this was interesting enough to warrant further distribution. There 
is at least one published record of an Anax junius capturing a Ruby-throated 
Hummingbird. Hofslund, P. B. 1977. Dragonfly attacks and kills a ruby-throated 
hummingbird. Loon 49: 238. 




  Begin forwarded message:


    From: "Mitch" 
    Date: September 28, 2009 1:52:26 PM PDT
    To: 
    Subject: [TexOdes] Fw: [texbirds] FW: Dragonfly takes down a hummingbird

Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:18:42 -0400 (GMT-04:00)




Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:15:48 -0400 (GMT-04:00)




Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: "SL Brown" <ictinia AT gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:40:12 -0400
Dennis wrote:
 


There were enough tandem pairs in the huge swarm of CG Darners I saw on Sept. 
30, 2007 to have been noteworthy. That flight was over the dunes directly 
adjacent to beach, by the way - which is as coastal as it gets. 


I've lost track of time (sadly, this is my busiest season, work-wise) - it's 
time to spend some time at beach, looking . . . interestingly (should this be 
peak CG Darner migration time in my area - in case that wasn't just a one-time 
fluke), peak Merlin migration down the beach in my area is typically around the 
first week of October, and I have quite often seen Merlins, particularly 
immature birds, fueling their migration flights with dragonflies. 


Sharon L. Brown
http://SLBrownPhoto.com

----------------------------------------------------------------

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed,
and to have my senses put in tune once more."

John Burroughs
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:56:38 -0700
I should add one more thing to this. I believe that tandem pairs have  
been seen among the groups of individuals apparently in southbound  
migration, and this is pretty good circumstantial evidence of breeding  
along the way. But it doesn't furnish any evidence that the same two  
dragonflies (probably not still in tandem) would continue south and  
then hook up for another one-day stand somewhere farther on. They  
probably do, but evidence for this won't be easy to acquire.

Dennis


On Sep 28, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Mike May wrote:

> Well, I jumped in before I read Dennis' more complete reply. I'll  
> just add that there is no evidence, based mostly on John Matthews'  
> extensive work, but also that of Joanna Freeland that there's any  
> genetic difference between migrants and residents. It's probably a  
> result of some behavioral switch, as Dennis described. Also, I  
> wouldn't say there isn't any evidence that Anax breed on the way  
> south, but I do admit that isn't tied down by nearly enough direct  
> observation.
>
> Mike
>
> --- On Mon, 9/28/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:
>
> From: Dennis Paulson 
> Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
> To: "Chris Hill" 
> Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 1:03 PM
>
>
>
> Chris,
>
> You're right that there are migrants and residents in the North and  
> how they differ. They are not genetically different, as far as I  
> recall, which surprised people when the research was done. But more  
> likely there is a genetic progamming in these populations that  
> provides them with the ability to emerge if they are ready to do so  
> in late summer and then migrate south but to overwinter as larvae if  
> they don't reach last instar in time to emerge. Those overwintering  
> ones then emerge the next spring, breed and die. Presumably if one  
> of them had a very fast-growing larva, it might emerge early enough  
> to migrate south, but I don't think that is known. More likely they  
> would not reach that stage and would overwinter, carrying on the  
> "resident" population. Do the ones that arrive from the south in  
> spring have larvae that take long enough so that some might  
> overwinter? An interesting question is "how likely is it that a  
> resident type can become a migrant or vice versa?" John Matthews  
> studied the species extensively, and I believe his research showed  
> that it was quite likely, as he raised eggs from the same female  
> under different photoperiod regimes and found that photoperiod  
> influenced developmental rate of the larvae and could turn them,  
> essentially, into spring-emerging or fall-emerging larvae. Some of  
> John's work is summarized in this reference:
>
> May, M. L., and J. H. Matthews. 2008. Migration in Odonata: a case  
> study of Anax junius. In Dragonflies & Damselflies, Model Organisms  
> for Ecological and Evolutionary Research, ed. A. Córdoba-Aguilar.  
> Oxford University Press.
>
>
> The situation is more or less reversed in the southern part of the  
> range, but with even less information. In southern Florida, most  
> Anax junius in the spring are immature, presumably recently emerged  
> from larvae that overwintered and likely to be heading north. There  
> is somewhat of a hiatus in summer, not many of them (but there are  
> some). Then in the fall there are great numbers of mature adults  
> breeding all over the place, presumably those individuals seen  
> migrating south along the Atlantic coast in previous months. But  
> there are also breeding records in spring, so perhaps there is a  
> resident population all the way down there as well. The situation in  
> Mexico and the West Indies is even less well understood. How late in  
> the winter do they breed at those latitudes? Are there any resident  
> populations?
>
> Then what happens at mid latitudes such as the Carolinas and a bit  
> farther north? Even more poorly known, I would say. Again, I think  
> John Matthews was trying to answer these questions. The May and  
> Matthews paper stated the belief that Common Green Darners were  
> breeding as they headed south in the fall, with the assumption that  
> individual dragonflies would breed somewhere, then continue farther  
> south and breed again, perhaps multiple times. I don't think there  
> is any evidence for this, and it would be good to know if this was  
> indeed the case. Are those darners you saw, Chris, on their way to  
> Florida or Cuba after their brief stop in South Carolina?
>
> Dennis
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 8:52 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>
>> OK, just to get this straight, there are supposed to be (in  
>> northern areas) two life cycles, migrants and residents, right?   
>> And the migrants arrive early in the spring, lay, and then emerge  
>> in the fall and head south.  And the residents overwinter as  
>> larvae, emerge and breed locally, and their offspring then again  
>> overwinter and emerge the next year.  And genetic studies have  
>> shown differences between migrants and locals, so they are distinct  
>> in any one area.  Is that right?  Migrants would then be  
>> multivoltine, residents univoltine?
>>
>> And the reason September oviposition is of interest is that it's  
>> too late for the locals?
>>
>> Sorry if I've hopelessly confused the situation - just trying to  
>> get the basics down so I can follow the discussion.
>>
>> I think I remember this as a usual late summer - September thing -  
>> I start seeing more CGDs at the ponds I frequent, and they are  
>> often breeding/ovipositing.  I see occasional individuals around as  
>> late as December, but I don't see enough of them to know what  
>> they're doing then.  And I should take more consistent notes on  
>> behavior, but I ususally don't.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>>
>>> Chris,
>>>
>>> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are  
>>> the ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding  
>>> in this species extends at least as far north as the northern  
>>> Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking  
>>> maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers  
>>> in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far  
>>> north that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to  
>>> put together that story from all the observers we have in the  
>>> field now.
>>>
>>> Dennis
>>>
>>
>> ************************************************************************
>> Christopher E. Hill
>> Biology Department
>> Coastal Carolina University
>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>> chill AT coastal.edu
>> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>>
>> "It's better to be wrong than vague."  - Freeman Dyson
>>
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:40:22 -0700 (PDT)
Well, I jumped in before I read Dennis' more complete reply. I'll just add that 
there is no evidence, based mostly on John Matthews' extensive work, but also 
that of Joanna Freeland that there's any genetic difference between migrants 
and residents. It's probably a result of some behavioral switch, as Dennis 
described. Also, I wouldn't say there isn't any evidence that Anax breed on the 
way south, but I do admit that isn't tied down by nearly enough direct 
observation. 

 
Mike

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Chris Hill" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 1:03 PM








Chris,


You're right that there are migrants and residents in the North and how they 
differ. They are not genetically different, as far as I recall, which surprised 
people when the research was done. But more likely there is a genetic 
progamming in these populations that provides them with the ability to emerge 
if they are ready to do so in late summer and then migrate south but to 
overwinter as larvae if they don't reach last instar in time to emerge. Those 
overwintering ones then emerge the next spring, breed and die. Presumably if 
one of them had a very fast-growing larva, it might emerge early enough to 
migrate south, but I don't think that is known. More likely they would not 
reach that stage and would overwinter, carrying on the "resident" population. 
Do the ones that arrive from the south in spring have larvae that take long 
enough so that some might overwinter? An interesting question is "how likely is 
it that a resident type can become a migrant or vice 

 versa?" John Matthews studied the species extensively, and I believe his 
research showed that it was quite likely, as he raised eggs from the same 
female under different photoperiod regimes and found that photoperiod 
influenced developmental rate of the larvae and could turn them, essentially, 
into spring-emerging or fall-emerging larvae. Some of John's work is summarized 
in this reference: 




May, M. L., and J. H. Matthews. 2008. Migration in Odonata: a case study of 
Anax junius. In Dragonflies & Damselflies, Model Organisms for Ecological and 
Evolutionary Research, ed. A. Córdoba-Aguilar. Oxford University Press. 



The situation is more or less reversed in the southern part of the range, but 
with even less information. In southern Florida, most Anax junius in the spring 
are immature, presumably recently emerged from larvae that overwintered and 
likely to be heading north. There is somewhat of a hiatus in summer, not many 
of them (but there are some). Then in the fall there are great numbers of 
mature adults breeding all over the place, presumably those individuals seen 
migrating south along the Atlantic coast in previous months. But there are also 
breeding records in spring, so perhaps there is a resident population all the 
way down there as well. The situation in Mexico and the West Indies is even 
less well understood. How late in the winter do they breed at those latitudes? 
Are there any resident populations? 



Then what happens at mid latitudes such as the Carolinas and a bit farther 
north? Even more poorly known, I would say. Again, I think John Matthews was 
trying to answer these questions. The May and Matthews paper stated the belief 
that Common Green Darners were breeding as they headed south in the fall, with 
the assumption that individual dragonflies would breed somewhere, then continue 
farther south and breed again, perhaps multiple times. I don't think there is 
any evidence for this, and it would be good to know if this was indeed the 
case. Are those darners you saw, Chris, on their way to Florida or Cuba after 
their brief stop in South Carolina? 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 8:52 AM, Chris Hill wrote:


OK, just to get this straight, there are supposed to be (in northern areas) two 
life cycles, migrants and residents, right?  And the migrants arrive early in 
the spring, lay, and then emerge in the fall and head south.  And the residents 
overwinter as larvae, emerge and breed locally, and their offspring then again 
overwinter and emerge the next year.  And genetic studies have shown 
differences between migrants and locals, so they are distinct in any one area. 
 Is that right?  Migrants would then be multivoltine, residents univoltine? 


And the reason September oviposition is of interest is that it's too late for 
the locals? 


Sorry if I've hopelessly confused the situation - just trying to get the basics 
down so I can follow the discussion. 


I think I remember this as a usual late summer - September thing - I start 
seeing more CGDs at the ponds I frequent, and they are often 
breeding/ovipositing.  I see occasional individuals around as late as December, 
but I don't see enough of them to know what they're doing then.  And I should 
take more consistent notes on behavior, but I ususally don't. 


Chris


On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:


Chris,



What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 




Dennis



************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

"It's better to be wrong than vague."  - Freeman Dyson





-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net









      
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:20:49 -0700 (PDT)

John Matthews observed fall oviposition in Anax junius as far north as 
Virginia, and I've certainly seen tandem pairs in NJ well into October. We 
think they will begin ovipositing as soon as they are sexually mature, which 
seems to occur during, not after, migration. In fact, we suspect they may 
oviposit multiple times on the way to wherever it is they go. This was 
published in our chapter on Migration in Alex Cordoba-Aguilar's book of 
dragonflies as model organisms (2008, Oxfour U. Press). 

 
 Nevertheless, it would be very valuable to have data on fall tandems, 
copulating pairs, and especially oviposition anywhere along their route. If a 
few people over a range of latitudes would undertake to keep regular records of 
occurence of unmated individuals, mating behavior, and oviposition over the 
course of a year, that would be a gold mine of information. I tried to get 
similar, although less detailed, information for several years via a web site 
that Bob Barber set up for us, but so many respondents didn't really know 
odonates and so couldn't identify what they were observing that I gave up. 
Presumably members of this list wouldn't have that problem. Persistence 
and reasonably regular observations - every week or so, if possible - is 
key. I'd be glad to compile such data if anyone wants to pursue it, or you 
could just post it to the list. 

 
I'm posting this to TexOdes as well (at least I hope so), so forgive any 
duplicate emails. 

 
Mike May

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Chris Hill" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 11:25 AM







Chris, 


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell










-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net













      

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:20:49 -0700 (PDT)

John Matthews observed fall oviposition in Anax junius as far north as 
Virginia, and I've certainly seen tandem pairs in NJ well into October. We 
think they will begin ovipositing as soon as they are sexually mature, which 
seems to occur during, not after, migration. In fact, we suspect they may 
oviposit multiple times on the way to wherever it is they go. This was 
published in our chapter on Migration in Alex Cordoba-Aguilar's book of 
dragonflies as model organisms (2008, Oxfour U. Press). 

 
 Nevertheless, it would be very valuable to have data on fall tandems, 
copulating pairs, and especially oviposition anywhere along their route. If a 
few people over a range of latitudes would undertake to keep regular records of 
occurence of unmated individuals, mating behavior, and oviposition over the 
course of a year, that would be a gold mine of information. I tried to get 
similar, although less detailed, information for several years via a web site 
that Bob Barber set up for us, but so many respondents didn't really know 
odonates and so couldn't identify what they were observing that I gave up. 
Presumably members of this list wouldn't have that problem. Persistence 
and reasonably regular observations - every week or so, if possible - is 
key. I'd be glad to compile such data if anyone wants to pursue it, or you 
could just post it to the list. 

 
I'm posting this to TexOdes as well (at least I hope so), so forgive any 
duplicate emails. 

 
Mike May

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Late Skimmers Conway SC
To: "Chris Hill" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 11:25 AM







Chris, 


What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the ovipositing 
Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species extends at 
least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South Carolina. I didn't 
realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in 
numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north 
that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that 
story from all the observers we have in the field now. 



Dennis





On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot 
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We 
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour 
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a 
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a 
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy 
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county 
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers. 
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted 
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for 
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have 
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep, 
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had 
dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue 
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a 
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point 
there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only 
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them, 
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough 
time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem 
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were 
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it 
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individu als-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual 
ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by 
other dragonflies. ..

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last 
week's floods.

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always 
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell










-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net













      
Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: "Jan Roxburgh" <2jani AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:02:03 -0400
Hi Dennis, and June.  

Thank you both for responding. My husband and I had initially been concerned 
about the health of the Blue Dasher because they did look like blood-sucker 
insects feeding on it.. Due to the parasites' size, I would have loved to have 
known how to safely remove them. 


We have seen smaller parasites on a couple of other dragonflies. When we next 
go through our 

photo folders, I will try and find those pics for comparison. Seem to remember 
one shows the pest attached on the dragonfly's wings. 


Thank you for the encouragement to photograph as many dragonflies as we see. I 
had read about the tropicals coming here to South Florida. (It's swelteringly 
hot enough I am sure!) We are just starting out now with identifying what we 
photograph. Bought two books to help.. Stokes "Beginner's Guide to 
Dragonflies", and "Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the SouthEast," 
by Beaton. 


If there is a simple wish-list here on the group, we can be on the look-out for 
them in Miami. My husband uses a nice macro lens, so he can get up close and 
personal with them, and capture wonderful detail. I can't get as close with 
mine. 


We have found that Shark Valley in the Everglades can be a great place to 
photograph dragons. 


Jan


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dennis Paulson 
  To: jani 
  Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 1:17 PM
  Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Dragonfly parasites?




  Jan,


 Most of the parasites you see on dragonflies are on their wing bases, and they 
are sandflies of the family Ceratopogonidae, usually the genus Forcipomyia. 
They suck blood from the basal wing veins but don't harm the dragonflies, for 
the most part. This family is the same group that includes the horrible 
sandflies (no-see'ums) that plague you in the evening in mangrove swamps and 
salt marshes in Florida. The ones I have seen on dragonflies look more or less 
like what you photographed but usually have larger wings and are a bit smaller, 
so I don't know if those are the same critters. I've never seen anything 
exactly like what you photographed. 



  Your dragonflies are male Blue Dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis.


 You live in an area with no resident odonatologists, although various of us 
visit there from time to time. It's an area where tropical dragonflies are 
moving in from the West Indies, so I encourage you to photograph as many kinds 
of dragonflies as you see! 



  Dennis

Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:19:07 -0700
They migrate along the coast but also inland, probably over a wider  
front than we realize. Like birds, they may have preferred routes but  
get spread out from them by weather conditions if not random flight  
directions.


On Sep 28, 2009, at 9:22 AM, Marion Dobbs wrote:

> PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal  
> migrants. I always think of dragonflies as migrating along the  
> coastline - when I think of dragonfly migration at all. Are these  
> not the common pathways?
>
> Marion Dobbs
> Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
> spreadwing AT mac.com
> pond_damsel AT comcast.net
> http://www.mamomi.net
> http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
> http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
>
> "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one  
> another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be  
> heard as well as our voices."__Bob Greene, author.
>
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:17:28 -0700
Jan,

Most of the parasites you see on dragonflies are on their wing bases,  
and they are sandflies of the family Ceratopogonidae, usually the  
genus Forcipomyia. They suck blood from the basal wing veins but don't  
harm the dragonflies, for the most part. This family is the same group  
that includes the horrible sandflies (no-see'ums) that plague you in  
the evening in mangrove swamps and salt marshes in Florida. The ones I  
have seen on dragonflies look more or less like what you photographed  
but usually have larger wings and are a bit smaller, so I don't know  
if those are the same critters. I've never seen anything exactly like  
what you photographed.

Your dragonflies are male Blue Dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis.

You live in an area with no resident odonatologists, although various  
of us visit there from time to time. It's an area where tropical  
dragonflies are moving in from the West Indies, so I encourage you to  
photograph as many kinds of dragonflies as you see!

Dennis

On Sep 28, 2009, at 9:32 AM, jani wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm a new member living in Miami, FL. My husband and I have become  
> keen dragonfly photographers over the past year. We planted a hedge  
> of Ixora, and discovered that attracts quite a few dragonflies to  
> our garden, which is nice and convenient, since wandering around  
> looking all over the place for them in the intense heat and humidity  
> isn't as much fun.
>
> I just created an album here named Jan Roxburgh which has a couple  
> of photos of a dragonfly that has two insects attached to its back.  
> When enlarging the photos, we could see that they have legs,  
> probably wings, and are attached by their mouths. Anyone know what  
> those critters are, and whether they harm the dragonflies? I did  
> research online, but didn't come up with much. We thought maybe a  
> gnat?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jan
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Re: Dragonfly parasites?
From: June Tveekrem <damselfly AT southernspreadwing.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:13:39 -0700 (PDT)
Those red insects are mites. They are very common parasites on dragonflies. I 
don't know what species of mite they are. 


June

--
June Tveekrem
Columbia, MD
damselfly |AT| southernspreadwing.com




----- Original Message ----
From: jani <2jani AT bellsouth.net>
To: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 12:32:38 PM
Subject: [se-odonata] Dragonfly parasites?

Hi,

I'm a new member living in Miami, FL. My husband and I have become keen 
dragonfly photographers over the past year. We planted a hedge of Ixora, and 
discovered that attracts quite a few dragonflies to our garden, which is nice 
and convenient, since wandering around looking all over the place for them in 
the intense heat and humidity isn't as much fun. 


I just created an album here named Jan Roxburgh which has a couple of photos of 
a dragonfly that has two insects attached to its back. When enlarging the 
photos, we could see that they have legs, probably wings, and are attached by 
their mouths. Anyone know what those critters are, and whether they harm the 
dragonflies? I did research online, but didn't come up with much. We thought 
maybe a gnat? 


Thanks.

Jan

Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:03:58 -0700
Chris,

You're right that there are migrants and residents in the North and  
how they differ. They are not genetically different, as far as I  
recall, which surprised people when the research was done. But more  
likely there is a genetic progamming in these populations that  
provides them with the ability to emerge if they are ready to do so in  
late summer and then migrate south but to overwinter as larvae if they  
don't reach last instar in time to emerge. Those overwintering ones  
then emerge the next spring, breed and die. Presumably if one of them  
had a very fast-growing larva, it might emerge early enough to migrate  
south, but I don't think that is known. More likely they would not  
reach that stage and would overwinter, carrying on the "resident"  
population. Do the ones that arrive from the south in spring have  
larvae that take long enough so that some might overwinter? An  
interesting question is "how likely is it that a resident type can  
become a migrant or vice versa?" John Matthews studied the species  
extensively, and I believe his research showed that it was quite  
likely, as he raised eggs from the same female under different  
photoperiod regimes and found that photoperiod influenced  
developmental rate of the larvae and could turn them, essentially,  
into spring-emerging or fall-emerging larvae. Some of John's work is  
summarized in this reference:

May, M. L., and J. H. Matthews. 2008. Migration in Odonata: a case  
study of Anax junius. In Dragonflies & Damselflies, Model Organisms  
for Ecological and Evolutionary Research, ed. A. Córdoba-Aguilar.  
Oxford University Press.


The situation is more or less reversed in the southern part of the  
range, but with even less information. In southern Florida, most Anax  
junius in the spring are immature, presumably recently emerged from  
larvae that overwintered and likely to be heading north. There is  
somewhat of a hiatus in summer, not many of them (but there are some).  
Then in the fall there are great numbers of mature adults breeding all  
over the place, presumably those individuals seen migrating south  
along the Atlantic coast in previous months. But there are also  
breeding records in spring, so perhaps there is a resident population  
all the way down there as well. The situation in Mexico and the West  
Indies is even less well understood. How late in the winter do they  
breed at those latitudes? Are there any resident populations?

Then what happens at mid latitudes such as the Carolinas and a bit  
farther north? Even more poorly known, I would say. Again, I think  
John Matthews was trying to answer these questions. The May and  
Matthews paper stated the belief that Common Green Darners were  
breeding as they headed south in the fall, with the assumption that  
individual dragonflies would breed somewhere, then continue farther  
south and breed again, perhaps multiple times. I don't think there is  
any evidence for this, and it would be good to know if this was indeed  
the case. Are those darners you saw, Chris, on their way to Florida or  
Cuba after their brief stop in South Carolina?

Dennis


On Sep 28, 2009, at 8:52 AM, Chris Hill wrote:

> OK, just to get this straight, there are supposed to be (in northern  
> areas) two life cycles, migrants and residents, right?  And the  
> migrants arrive early in the spring, lay, and then emerge in the  
> fall and head south.  And the residents overwinter as larvae, emerge  
> and breed locally, and their offspring then again overwinter and  
> emerge the next year.  And genetic studies have shown differences  
> between migrants and locals, so they are distinct in any one area.   
> Is that right?  Migrants would then be multivoltine, residents  
> univoltine?
>
> And the reason September oviposition is of interest is that it's too  
> late for the locals?
>
> Sorry if I've hopelessly confused the situation - just trying to get  
> the basics down so I can follow the discussion.
>
> I think I remember this as a usual late summer - September thing - I  
> start seeing more CGDs at the ponds I frequent, and they are often  
> breeding/ovipositing.  I see occasional individuals around as late  
> as December, but I don't see enough of them to know what they're  
> doing then.  And I should take more consistent notes on behavior,  
> but I ususally don't.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>
>> Chris,
>>
>> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
>> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in  
>> this species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal  
>> Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it  
>> was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south  
>> Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north that  
>> behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together  
>> that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>
> ************************************************************************
> Christopher E. Hill
> Biology Department
> Coastal Carolina University
> Conway, SC 29528-1954
> chill AT coastal.edu
> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>
> "It's better to be wrong than vague."  - Freeman Dyson
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Dragonfly parasites?
From: "jani" <2jani AT bellsouth.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:32:38 -0000
Hi,

I'm a new member living in Miami, FL. My husband and I have become keen 
dragonfly photographers over the past year. We planted a hedge of Ixora, and 
discovered that attracts quite a few dragonflies to our garden, which is nice 
and convenient, since wandering around looking all over the place for them in 
the intense heat and humidity isn't as much fun. 


I just created an album here named Jan Roxburgh which has a couple of photos of 
a dragonfly that has two insects attached to its back. When enlarging the 
photos, we could see that they have legs, probably wings, and are attached by 
their mouths. Anyone know what those critters are, and whether they harm the 
dragonflies? I did research online, but didn't come up with much. We thought 
maybe a gnat? 


Thanks.

Jan
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Marion Dobbs <spreadwing AT mac.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:22:11 -0400
PS And these Georgia fall ovipositors probably wouldn't be coastal  
migrants. I always think of dragonflies as migrating along the  
coastline - when I think of dragonfly migration at all. Are these not  
the common pathways?

Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi.net
http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/

"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one  
another -- until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be  
heard as well as our voices."__Bob Greene, author.


Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi.net
http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the  
expert's mind there are few." _Shunryu Suzuki



On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Chris,
>
>
> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in  
> this species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal  
> Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it  
> was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south  
> Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north that  
> behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together  
> that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>
>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot
>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour
>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a
>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>> couple Carolina Bays.
>>
>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for  
>> boggy
>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers.
>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>> documentation.
>>
>> I failed.
>>
>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep,
>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a
>> quarter as many?
>>
>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>>
>> Swamp Spreadwings
>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>> Painted Skimmer
>> Blue Dasher
>> Wandering Glider
>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while,  
>> enough
>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem
>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were
>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it
>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individuals- 
>> harassing-
>> a-pair type scenario.
>>
>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual
>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>> other dragonflies...
>>
>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last
>> week's floods.
>>
>> CH
>>
>> ********************************************************************* 
>> ***
>> Christopher E. Hill
>> Biology Department
>> Coastal Carolina University
>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>> chill AT coastal.edu
>> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>>
>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are  
>> always
>> so
>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>> - Bertrand Russell
>>
>>
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
> .
>
> 
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Marion Dobbs <spreadwing AT mac.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:13:16 -0400
Dennis,

I have photographs of Common Green Darners ovipositing on the  
following dates at the following locations:

10/01/2006 - Terrell Co. in southeast GA
10/04/2005 - Montgomery Co. in centralish GA
10/17/2004 - Colquitt Co. in extreme south GA
11/25/2005 - Cook Co. in extreme south GA

These locations are all latitudinally south of Conway, SC, to a  
greater or lesser degree (:-0)), but they are also at later dates and  
certainly north of Florida

Marion

Marion Dobbs
Rome (Floyd Co.) GA
spreadwing AT mac.com
pond_damsel AT comcast.net
http://www.mamomi.net
http://albums.phanfare.com/ponddamsel
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/

_"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the  
illusion of knowledge." _ Daniel Boorstin


On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Chris,
>
>
> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in  
> this species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal  
> Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it  
> was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south  
> Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north that  
> behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together  
> that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>
>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot
>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour
>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a
>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>> couple Carolina Bays.
>>
>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for  
>> boggy
>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers.
>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>> documentation.
>>
>> I failed.
>>
>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep,
>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a
>> quarter as many?
>>
>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>>
>> Swamp Spreadwings
>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>> Painted Skimmer
>> Blue Dasher
>> Wandering Glider
>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while,  
>> enough
>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem
>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were
>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it
>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individuals- 
>> harassing-
>> a-pair type scenario.
>>
>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual
>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>> other dragonflies...
>>
>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last
>> week's floods.
>>
>> CH
>>
>> ********************************************************************* 
>> ***
>> Christopher E. Hill
>> Biology Department
>> Coastal Carolina University
>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>> chill AT coastal.edu
>> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>>
>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are  
>> always
>> so
>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>> - Bertrand Russell
>>
>>
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
>
>
> 
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:52:44 -0400
OK, just to get this straight, there are supposed to be (in northern  
areas) two life cycles, migrants and residents, right?  And the  
migrants arrive early in the spring, lay, and then emerge in the fall  
and head south.  And the residents overwinter as larvae, emerge and  
breed locally, and their offspring then again overwinter and emerge  
the next year.  And genetic studies have shown differences between  
migrants and locals, so they are distinct in any one area.  Is that  
right?  Migrants would then be multivoltine, residents univoltine?

And the reason September oviposition is of interest is that it's too  
late for the locals?

Sorry if I've hopelessly confused the situation - just trying to get  
the basics down so I can follow the discussion.

I think I remember this as a usual late summer - September thing - I  
start seeing more CGDs at the ponds I frequent, and they are often  
breeding/ovipositing.  I see occasional individuals around as late as  
December, but I don't see enough of them to know what they're doing  
then.  And I should take more consistent notes on behavior, but I  
ususally don't.

Chris


On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Chris,
>
> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in  
> this species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal  
> Plain of South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it  
> was restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south  
> Texas and southern California now, and I wonder how far north that  
> behavior extends. It's long past time for someone to put together  
> that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>
> Dennis
>

************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

"It's better to be wrong than vague."  - Freeman Dyson
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: jspippen <jspippen AT duke.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:42:16 -0400 (EDT)
All,

Not nearly as late as Chris's sightings, and I haven't had a chance to 
work them up and put them online yet, but I photographed some ovipositing 
Common Green Darners 29 August 2009 in southeast North Carolina (Brunswick 
Co. near Southport).  Carolina Saddlebags were ovipositing in the same 
little storm water pond.

Cheers,
Jeff
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Jeffrey S. Pippen
Nicholas School of the Environment
Duke University, Durham, NC  27708
http://www.duke.edu/~jspippen/nature.htm
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Chris,
>
> What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the 
> ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this species 

> extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of South 
> Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it was restricted to Florida. 

> They are breeding in numbers in south Texas and southern California now, and 
> I wonder how far north that behavior extends. It's long past time for someone 

> to put together that story from all the observers we have in the field now.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>
>> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot
>> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
>> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour
>> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a
>> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
>> couple Carolina Bays.
>> 
>> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy
>> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
>> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers.
>> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
>> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
>> documentation.
>> 
>> I failed.
>> 
>> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
>> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep,
>> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
>> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
>> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a
>> quarter as many?
>> 
>> The list, combined across the two dates:
>> 
>> Swamp Spreadwings
>> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
>> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
>> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
>> Common Pondhawk, a couple
>> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
>> Golden-winged Skimmer
>> Bar-winged Skimmer
>> Painted Skimmer
>> Blue Dasher
>> Wandering Glider
>> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
>> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
>> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
>> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough
>> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem
>> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were
>> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it
>> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individuals-harassing-
>> a-pair type scenario.
>> 
>> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual
>> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
>> other dragonflies...
>> 
>> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last
>> week's floods.
>> 
>> CH
>> 
>> ************************************************************************
>> Christopher E. Hill
>> Biology Department
>> Coastal Carolina University
>> Conway, SC 29528-1954
>> chill AT coastal.edu
>> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>> 
>> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
>> so
>> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
>> - Bertrand Russell
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson AT comcast.net
>
>
Subject: Re: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:25:04 -0700
Chris,

What's especially interesting to me about your observations are the  
ovipositing Common Green Darners. It seems that fall breeding in this  
species extends at least as far north as the northern Coastal Plain of  
South Carolina. I didn't realize that, thinking maybe it was  
restricted to Florida. They are breeding in numbers in south Texas and  
southern California now, and I wonder how far north that behavior  
extends. It's long past time for someone to put together that story  
from all the observers we have in the field now.

Dennis


On Sep 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Chris Hill wrote:

> A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot
> out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC. We
> convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour
> and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a
> lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a
> couple Carolina Bays.
>
> Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy
> spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county
> list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers.
> Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted
> Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for
> documentation.
>
> I failed.
>
> But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted. There have
> been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep,
> the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had
> dropped a lot. Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue
> Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a
> quarter as many?
>
> The list, combined across the two dates:
>
> Swamp Spreadwings
> Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails. Most likely the former. a few females
> Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
> Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
> Common Pondhawk, a couple
> Little Blue Dragonlet. Clouds of them.
> Golden-winged Skimmer
> Bar-winged Skimmer
> Painted Skimmer
> Blue Dasher
> Wandering Glider
> Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday. At one point
> there was a flock. I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only
> time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock." Seven of them,
> all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough
> time to fly by me a couple times. Granted, there were a couple tandem
> pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were
> going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it
> looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individuals- 
> harassing-
> a-pair type scenario.
>
> Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual
> ponds I visit. It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by
> other dragonflies...
>
> Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last
> week's floods.
>
> CH
>
> ************************************************************************
> Christopher E. Hill
> Biology Department
> Coastal Carolina University
> Conway, SC 29528-1954
> chill AT coastal.edu
> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>
> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
> so
> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
> - Bertrand Russell
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Late Skimmers Conway SC
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:05:19 -0400
A front swept away the clouds Sunday afternoon and I decided to scoot  
out to Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve near Conway, SC.  We  
convinced the 12 year old neighbor to watch our two boys for an hour  
and a half, so Amy was able to join me for a little slogging (well, a  
lot, really) through flooded sphagnum down a powerline through a  
couple Carolina Bays.

Last Monday, while checking out the area - I've been looking for boggy  
spots where I might be able to add a couple new odes to the county  
list next year - I saw 11 Bar-winged Skimmers and 8 Painted Skimmers.   
Those are both rather late flight dates, especially the Painted  
Skimmers, so I wanted to go back out again and get some photos for  
documentation.

I failed.

But we did see some of each - 1 Bar-winged, 4 Painted.  There have  
been a couple hard rains since last Monday, so instead of ankle deep,  
the water was near knee deep in places, and the ode abundance had  
dropped a lot.  Last Monday I "counted" about 390 Little Blue  
Dragonlets in a about a half hour, yesterday (Sunday) I don't know, a  
quarter as many?

The list, combined across the two dates:

Swamp Spreadwings
Citrine? or Fragile? Forktails.  Most likely the former. a few females
Common Green Darners, mating and ovipositing
Swamp? Darner (one large dark darner, poorly seen)
Common Pondhawk, a couple
Little Blue Dragonlet.  Clouds of them.
Golden-winged Skimmer
Bar-winged Skimmer
Painted Skimmer
Blue Dasher
Wandering Glider
Carolina Saddlebags - counted about 18 last Monday.  At one point  
there was a flock.  I've seen odonate swarms, but this was the only  
time I've ever seen anything I would call a "flock."  Seven of them,  
all flying around in a group that persisted for a little while, enough  
time to fly by me a couple times.  Granted, there were a couple tandem  
pairs, so it was about 5 "flying units," but still, those units were  
going around in a tight group for maybe a minute, so qualitatively it  
looked different from the more normal one-or-two-individuals-harassing- 
a-pair type scenario.

Not a ton of diversity, but a different suite of odes from the usual  
ponds I visit.  It's nice to see Pondhawks outnumbered 150 to 1 by  
other dragonflies...

Hope those of you in Georgia have managed to tread water through last  
week's floods.

CH


************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always  
so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell
Subject: Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: VLDELOACH AT aol.com
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:14:34 EDT
The only 12-spotted Skimmer (L. pulchella) that I've seen perched and could 
 photograph was last September at a nearby farm.  I had been visiting the  
farm all summer and this was the only L. pulchella I saw there.  I have  
several photos posted that can be found with the flickr search function -  
here's one of them:
 
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/2861810695/_ 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickisnature/2861810695/) 
(mailto:se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com) 

 
He was in beautiful shape - one of the most stunning dragonflies I've ever  
seen.  And he was either fatigued or unafraid - I was able to walk  around 
him 360o and put my camera in his face.  I assumed he was a  migrant.
 
On a different note - I'm wondering what impact our historic rains, rushing 
 waters and flooding will have on next year's ode population?
 
Vicki DeLoach
Woodstock, GA
 
 
 
In a message dated 9/21/2009 8:22:08 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
phenes53 AT yahoo.com writes:

L. pulchella is a puzzling case. They're often noted as probable migrants  
near Cape May, NJ, and I've seen unexpectedly high (although not huge) 
numbers in association with Anax junius and Tramea spp. in areas where all the 

above  apparently congregate to feed in the fall. The odd thing is that 
almost all  the pulchella are clearly old and worn, whereas the "standard" 
migrants are fresh and fairly often not sexually mature. It would be 
interesting 

to know  what the situation is in other areas.
 
Mike May

--- On Sun, 9/20/09, Dennis Paulson   wrote:



From: Dennis  Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata]  Twelve-spotted Skimmer
To: "Chris Hill"  
Cc: "se-odonata AT Cc: "se-odonCc: "se-odonata AT 
Date: Sunday, September  20, 2009, 12:09 PM



Chris,  


Twelve-spotted and other Libellula have been suspect, just because of  
their numbers and flight direction and association with known migrant species, 

in southbound coastal migrations in New England, I know. You're  probably in 
a good area to observe migration, so whenever you could get to a  coastal 
location in spring and fall, you might make interesting  observations. A 
friend of mine visited Charleston in April some years ago  and saw what she 
thought was a northbound coastal migration, although she  didn't know the 
species.


Of course you might see some shorebirds while you're there, which could  
prove distracting.


Dennis




On Sep 20, 2009, at 8:22 AM, Chris Hill wrote:



 
 
 
Among the odes I've never seen in my home county on the coastal  plain 
of SC are three  "king skimmers:" Yellow-sided, Spangled and Twelve- 
spotted. Or flavida, cyanea  and pulchella, if you lean that way. 
Each has more upland/northern  affinities than the usual crew of common 
coastal plain  skimmers.

Yesterday I got to cross one of them off the wanted list.  I stopped 
by the local  supermarket to pick up ice cream and walked over to a 
little retention pond to see  what was flying. Most notable were 
Roseate Skimmers Orthemis  ferruginea, Black Saddlebags Tramea 
lacerata, Wandering Glider  Pantala flavescens and several Common Green 
Darners Anax junius, with  lots of mating and ovipositing activity. 
Nothing rare, but a nice  assortment of big pretty odes doing 
interesting things. And then  there was a male Twelve-spotted Skimmer 
cruising up and down the  muddy shore. Hard to miss one of those!

I think I've heard that  there can be a fall movement of Twelve-spotted 
Skimmers. I don't know  whether the one I saw is a "true" migrant or 
just a late summer individual  dispersing into a new area. Nathan Dias 
found another individual this  past May, also on the coastal plain in 
Charleston County, so maybe  the fall date is just a coincidence, but 
with all the bird migration  going on, it is easy to think of this as a 
fall migrant.

Now if  the fall would just send me a Red Saddlebags, a Meadowhawk of 
any flavor, or maybe a  Phantom Darner?

CH

************ ********* *********  ********* ********* ********* ********* 
******
Christopher E.  Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC  29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
_http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm_ 
(http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm) 

If you  don't know the answer, no question is stupid. - Michael  Price















 
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
_dennispaulson AT dennispauls_ 
(http://us.mc1126.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=dennispaulson AT comcast.net) 







Subject: Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: "Troy, Marla, & Cheyenne Hibbitts" <alterna2627 AT swtexas.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:39:33 -0500
In my neck of the woods (south Texas, right on the southern edge of the Hill
Country to the west of San Antonio), the past 2 years (I've only been
looking that long), we haven't seen 12-spots until at least mid-to-late
August, with the bulk of their numbers appearing in September.  This year
was the first that I've seen females, as well.  It is my impression that
they're at least being hatched somewhere to the north of us, then dispersing
into our area later in the summer.  The males are fairly fresh adults, not
too worn, but not immature either.  Don't know if this qualifies as a
"migration" or not, though.

 

Troy Hibbitts

Camp Wood, TX
Subject: Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: opihi AT mindspring.com
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:25 -0400 (EDT)




Subject: Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: Mike May <phenes53 AT yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:21:42 -0700 (PDT)
L. pulchella is a puzzling case. They're often noted as probable migrants near 
Cape May, NJ, and I've seen unexpectedly high (although not huge) numbers in 
association with Anax junius and Tramea spp. in areas where all the above 
apparently congregate to feed in the fall. The odd thing is that almost all the 
pulchella are clearly old and worn, whereas the "standard" migrants are fresh 
and fairly often not sexually mature. It would be interesting to know what the 
situation is in other areas. 

 
Mike May

--- On Sun, 9/20/09, Dennis Paulson  wrote:


From: Dennis Paulson 
Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Twelve-spotted Skimmer
To: "Chris Hill" 
Cc: "se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com Odonata" 
Date: Sunday, September 20, 2009, 12:09 PM








Chris,


Twelve-spotted and other Libellula have been suspect, just because of their 
numbers and flight direction and association with known migrant species, in 
southbound coastal migrations in New England, I know. You're probably in a good 
area to observe migration, so whenever you could get to a coastal location in 
spring and fall, you might make interesting observations. A friend of mine 
visited Charleston in April some years ago and saw what she thought was a 
northbound coastal migration, although she didn't know the species. 



Of course you might see some shorebirds while you're there, which could prove 
distracting. 



Dennis





On Sep 20, 2009, at 8:22 AM, Chris Hill wrote:






Among the odes I've never seen in my home county on the coastal plain 
of SC are three "king skimmers:" Yellow-sided, Spangled and Twelve- 
spotted. Or flavida, cyanea and pulchella, if you lean that way. 
Each has more upland/northern affinities than the usual crew of common 
coastal plain skimmers.

Yesterday I got to cross one of them off the wanted list. I stopped 
by the local supermarket to pick up ice cream and walked over to a 
little retention pond to see what was flying. Most notable were 
Roseate Skimmers Orthemis ferruginea, Black Saddlebags Tramea 
lacerata, Wandering Glider Pantala flavescens and several Common Green 
Darners Anax junius, with lots of mating and ovipositing activity. 
Nothing rare, but a nice assortment of big pretty odes doing 
interesting things. And then there was a male Twelve-spotted Skimmer 
cruising up and down the muddy shore. Hard to miss one of those!

I think I've heard that there can be a fall movement of Twelve-spotted 
Skimmers. I don't know whether the one I saw is a "true" migrant or 
just a late summer individual dispersing into a new area. Nathan Dias 
found another individual this past May, also on the coastal plain in 
Charleston County, so maybe the fall date is just a coincidence, but 
with all the bird migration going on, it is easy to think of this as a 
fall migrant.

Now if the fall would just send me a Red Saddlebags, a Meadowhawk of 
any flavor, or maybe a Phantom Darner?

CH

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal. edu/chill/ chill.htm

If you don't know the answer, no question is stupid. - Michael Price






-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net










__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
Subject: Re: Meadowhawk?
From: June Tveekrem <damselfly AT southernspreadwing.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:22:01 -0400
Alex,

The dragonfly is definitely a male meadowhawk, probably Autumn, although 
another possibility is Ruby Meadowhawk.

You can get an ID for the mantisfly by posting to BugGuide 
(bugguide.net). I don't know of a general bug listserv for North 
Carolina, but you might find joining VA-MD-DE-Bugs useful. It's a Yahoo 
group.

June

-- 
June Tveekrem
Columbia, Maryland, U.S.
damselfly|AT|southernspreadwing.com
http://SouthernSpreadwing.com


Alex Netherton wrote:
>  I was out actually doing wildflower photography with my
>  (admittedly woefully inadequate) digital camera, and ran across this
>  dragonfly on a rock along the Swannanoa River. I called it a Yellow
>  Legged (Autumn) Meadowhawk, _Sympetrum vicinum,_ but I could
>  certainly be wrong. Please remember that I trained most of my young
>  adult life as a Botanist. I am not really an Entomologist, I just own
>  this list  :-D
>
>  Really a very showy creature, I must say. Another critter I saw when
>  out hunting was a Mantis Fly. I know it is not an Odonate, but know
>  of no forum for general bugs, and I find it of interest.
>
>  The odd thing is that, though not really related to the Mantids (or
>  so "they" say), it had me thinking it was one until I realized I had
>  heard of Mantisflies somewhere. So odd that their general
>  construction is so similar to Mantids, though in different orders.
>  Convergence, I guess...
>
>  I am sure someone will correct my ID of the Dragon, but if anyone has
>  an ID on the Mantispid, I would appreciate it.
>
>  Thanks! -- Alex Netherton

Asheville, NC
http://blueridgediscovery.com
http://blueridgediscovery.blogspot.com
Subject: Re: Meadowhawk?
From: Steve Hummel <shummel AT iowatelecom.net>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:30:50 -0500
Hi Alex,
Looks like there is too much black on the abdomen for vicinum, but  
hard to tell from the photo.
For general insects try Bug Guide from Iowa State University: 
http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740 

You can post photos of insects and get advice on identifications.
Steve

Steve Hummel
shummel AT iowatelecom.net



On Sep 20, 2009, at 7:15 PM, Alex Netherton wrote:

I was out actually doing wildflower photography with my (admittedly  
woefully inadequate) digital camera, and ran across this dragonfly on  
a rock along the Swannanoa River. I called it a Yellow Legged (Autumn)  
Meadowhawk,Sympetrum vicinum, but I could certainly be wrong. Please  
remember that I trained most of my young adult life as a Botanist. I  
am not really an Entomologist, I just own this list  :-D


Really a very showy creature, I must say. Another critter I saw when  
out hunting was a Mantis Fly. I know it is not an Odonate, but know of  
no forum for general bugs, and I find it of interest.


The odd thing is that, though not really related to the Mantids (or so  
"they" say), it had me thinking it was one until I realized I had  
heard of Mantisflies somewhere. So odd that their general construction  
is so similar to Mantids, though in different orders. Convergence, I  
guess...

I am sure someone will correct my ID of the Dragon, but if anyone has  
an ID on the Mantispid, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

-- 
Alex Netherton
Asheville, NC
http://blueridgediscovery.com
http://blueridgediscovery.blogspot.com


Subject: Meadowhawk?
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:15:46 -0400




Subject: Re: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:09:50 -0700
Chris,

Twelve-spotted and other Libellula have been suspect, just because of  
their numbers and flight direction and association with known migrant  
species, in southbound coastal migrations in New England, I know.  
You're probably in a good area to observe migration, so whenever you  
could get to a coastal location in spring and fall, you might make  
interesting observations. A friend of mine visited Charleston in April  
some years ago and saw what she thought was a northbound coastal  
migration, although she didn't know the species.

Of course you might see some shorebirds while you're there, which  
could prove distracting.

Dennis


On Sep 20, 2009, at 8:22 AM, Chris Hill wrote:

> Among the odes I've never seen in my home county on the coastal plain
> of SC are three "king skimmers:" Yellow-sided, Spangled and Twelve-
> spotted. Or flavida, cyanea and pulchella, if you lean that way.
> Each has more upland/northern affinities than the usual crew of common
> coastal plain skimmers.
>
> Yesterday I got to cross one of them off the wanted list. I stopped
> by the local supermarket to pick up ice cream and walked over to a
> little retention pond to see what was flying. Most notable were
> Roseate Skimmers Orthemis ferruginea, Black Saddlebags Tramea
> lacerata, Wandering Glider Pantala flavescens and several Common Green
> Darners Anax junius, with lots of mating and ovipositing activity.
> Nothing rare, but a nice assortment of big pretty odes doing
> interesting things. And then there was a male Twelve-spotted Skimmer
> cruising up and down the muddy shore. Hard to miss one of those!
>
> I think I've heard that there can be a fall movement of Twelve-spotted
> Skimmers. I don't know whether the one I saw is a "true" migrant or
> just a late summer individual dispersing into a new area. Nathan Dias
> found another individual this past May, also on the coastal plain in
> Charleston County, so maybe the fall date is just a coincidence, but
> with all the bird migration going on, it is easy to think of this as a
> fall migrant.
>
> Now if the fall would just send me a Red Saddlebags, a Meadowhawk of
> any flavor, or maybe a Phantom Darner?
>
> CH
>
> ************************************************************************
> Christopher E. Hill
> Biology Department
> Coastal Carolina University
> Conway, SC 29528-1954
> chill AT coastal.edu
> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>
> If you don't know the answer, no question is stupid. - Michael Price
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Twelve-spotted Skimmer
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:22:10 -0400
Among the odes I've never seen in my home county on the coastal plain  
of SC are three "king skimmers:" Yellow-sided, Spangled and Twelve- 
spotted.  Or flavida, cyanea and pulchella, if you lean that way.   
Each has more upland/northern affinities than the usual crew of common  
coastal plain skimmers.

Yesterday I got to cross one of them off the wanted list.  I stopped  
by the local supermarket to pick up ice cream and walked over to a  
little retention pond to see what was flying.  Most notable were  
Roseate Skimmers Orthemis ferruginea, Black Saddlebags Tramea  
lacerata, Wandering Glider Pantala flavescens and several Common Green  
Darners Anax junius, with lots of mating and ovipositing activity.   
Nothing rare, but a nice assortment of big pretty odes doing  
interesting things.  And then there was a male Twelve-spotted Skimmer  
cruising up and down the muddy shore.  Hard to miss one of those!

I think I've heard that there can be a fall movement of Twelve-spotted  
Skimmers.  I don't know whether the one I saw is a "true" migrant or  
just a late summer individual dispersing into a new area.  Nathan Dias  
found another individual this past May, also on the coastal plain in  
Charleston County, so maybe the fall date is just a coincidence, but  
with all the bird migration going on, it is easy to think of this as a  
fall migrant.

Now if the fall would just send me a Red Saddlebags, a Meadowhawk of  
any flavor, or maybe a Phantom Darner?

CH

************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

If you don't know the answer, no question is stupid.  -  Michael Price

Subject: [Fwd: Hilton Pond 09/01/09 (Damsels & Dragons)] [1 Attachment]
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:34:44 -0400




Subject: Re: "Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood!" AAh!
 Mr. Rogers-Good Times!! and Dragonflies-well most of the time!
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:42:33 -0400




Subject: Ruubyspot
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:47:40 -0400
I don't often post, but I was out on the Swannanoa River yesterday, and 
saw an Rubyspot, actually several. I guess they are everywhere, but this 
is the first year I have noticed them. Also saw an Ebony Jewelwing (of 
course, near a river). Also saw a pair of Rubyspots in tandem. Hoped to 
see the "wheel", but didn't happen. No camera on me, of course...

-- 
Alex Netherton
Asheville, NC
http://blueridgediscovery.com
http://blueridgediscovery.blogspot.com
Subject: Re: Asheville, NC odonatist?
From: Alex Netherton <danetherton AT charter.net>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:40:21 -0400




Subject: Asheville, NC odonatist?
From: June Tveekrem <damselfly AT southernspreadwing.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:43:57 -0400
Does anybody on this list look at odonates near Asheville, NC on a 
regular basis? By "regular" I guess I mean at least once a year.

June

-- 
June Tveekrem
Columbia, Maryland, U.S.
damselfly|AT|southernspreadwing.com
http://SouthernSpreadwing.com
Subject: What would be the opposite of "Sting?" Erythemis simplicicollis, my personal "Bug Terminator"
From: Martha Smith <scldrgnfly AT yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 12:30:42 -0700 (PDT)
The story is pretty neat, but I just had to put this in:

Syllogistically,
my story really doesn't describe the the opposite action of "Sting,"
but it could describe the motivation behind the actions involved, at
least from the perspective of the human on the receiving end. 
Obviously, from the perspective of the Odonates, both actions would be
for "self"-preservation (Anthropomorphic term?  Are dragonflies
cognitive of a social identity?)

The other day I was at my daughter's school tennis match and was
sitting on the bleachers with the other parents and players watching
her play.  I was quite absorbed in watching, trying to ignore the
insistent gnats that plague us at the matches every year in this rural
farm country.

First, it felt like every so often, someone was tapping me softly
on the backs of my legs and then I turned when something caught my eye
and the girl next to me started to laugh.  She and everyone else were
watching the male Erythemis simplicicollis (Eastern Pondhawk) that had
caught my eye.

He was flying back and forth in front of us (we were on the first
bleacher), but every so often he would land on the ground between my
feet or a stick just behind my left leg, after plucking a gnat from the
back of my leg or behind my bent knee.  It was so funny, because he
stayed so long and sat munching while we looked on.  At least five or
six times he even landed on the cross-piece of my sandals looking up as
he ate his tasty morsels (not that I would make a practice of it, but
have any of you accidently gotten a gnat in your mouth?  They taste
kind of sweet).  I have no idea how many tiresome gnats he consumed,
but there were hardly any around me when he left about 15 minutes
later. 

Of course, with the school cow nosing at the cyclone fence around
the tennis courts, and the cotton and tobacco fields nearby, it didn't
take long for the gnats to discover his absence.

Martha Edwards Smith


      
Subject: Horry County, SC: elusive emeralds and Georgia River Cruiser
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 09:27:02 -0400
Ahoy, Anisopteran Antagonizers,

Well, we had some logistics issues and then at our first stop (Simpson  
Creek and trib, the latter almost completely dry), there were so few  
odes (5 species!) that Gary Phillips and I skipped Clear Pond,  
abandoned our big day ambitions early yesterday and just hit one or  
two scenic spots yesterday on local streams and rivers.  And I hit a  
pond later on.

The best hour (for me, at least) was spent on a sandy road through  
pine woods, watching Emeralds (and one slightly thicker mystery  
dragon) fly overhead, tantalizingly close (but in three swings, I was  
about 2 feet too short each time).  The only Somatochlora emeralds  
I've found around here so far are Fine-lined, but especially in a new  
spot (I'd never been to this road before) hope springs eternal that  
there will be something new for me (and for the county list).   
Although I never did catch an emerald, a bonus was a Georgia River  
Cruiser that came by at shoulder height and was in my net before he or  
I had time to think about it.  I see Royal River Cruisers constantly  
on the local rivers, but puzzlingly, never see the smaller Macromias  
there.  I had a flyby sighting earlier this summer (on a road, not a  
river), but this is actually the first one I've been able to catch and  
examine here in Horry Co.

As for those emeralds, I may need a longer net.

The (short) list:
Variable Dancer, Argia fumipennis fumipennis
Powdered Dancer, Argia moesta
Blue-tipped Dancer, Argia tibialis
Rambur's Forktail, Ischura ramburii
Fragile Forktail, Ischnura posita
Familiar Bluet, Enallagma civile
Orange Bluet, Enallagma signatum
Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna heros
Cyrano Darner (? poorly seen), Nasiaeschna pentacantha
Emerald sp.  Somatochlora sp.
Georgia River Cruiser, Macromia illinoisensis georgina
Royal River Cruiser, Macromia taeniolata
Four-spotted Pennant, Brachymesia gravida
Calico Pennant, Celithemis elisa
Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina
Common Pondhawk, Erythemis simplicicollis
Slaty Skimmer, Libellula incesta
Needham's Skimmer, Libellula needhami
Great Blue Skimmer, Libellula vibrans
Roseate Skimmer, Orthemis ferruginea
Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis
Wandering Glider, Pantala flavescens
Eastern Amberwing, Perithemis tenera
Common Whitetail, Plathymis lydia
Carolina Saddlebags, Tramea carolina
Black Saddlebags, Tramea lacerata

CH

************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

If all you have is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts looking  
like a nail.
Subject: Rabun Co., GA
From: Marion Dobbs <spreadwing AT mac.com>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:00:56 -0400
There aren't a lot of accessible ponds in the NE GA mountains, so I  
continue to monitor rivers and streams. This past weekend I had  
occasion to be in Clayton, GA, and decided to spend an hour checking  
the little nameless sand-bottomed stream that wends its way through  
the town. This is the location where I had five gomphid species on the  
13th of June, along with a nice and abundant assortment of damsels and  
skimmers. In the words of one of Bob Dylan's more recent songs, things  
have changed.

This day I found the following species:

Ebony Jewelwing [Calopteryx maculata] - 21
Variable (Violet) dancer [Argia fumipennis violacea] - 49
Fawn Darner [Boyeria vinosa] - 1
Eastern Pondhawk [Erythemis simplicicollis] - 1
Blue Dasher [Pachydiplax longipennis] - 1


Marion Dobbs
9 Bridlewood Lane
Rome GA  30165
ecurlew AT mac.com
http://www.mamomi.net
http://mariondobbs.smugmug.com/
http://ponddamsel.phanfare.com/

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion  
of knowledge." _ Daniel Boorstin
Subject: NC Sandhills Odes August 23
From: birdcr AT concentric.net
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:12:04 -0400
Folks,

Last Sunday I met up with Dan Bogar and Jerry Mc Williams visiting from PA and 
we 

checked out the sandhills gamelands. We all had new bugs we had never seen 
before, for 

me it was Burgandy Bluet and I also got my first photos of Fawn Darner and 
Georgia River 

Cruiser.

The day started out very gloomy so our first stop was a creek along Thunder Rd. 
We looked 

over the bridge onto the stream and the joe-pye-weed there was covered in 
Lace-winged 

Roadside Skipper, one flower had 12 of them in all we esimated 60 at the stream 
itself. The 

NC record count was just 42 lace-wings, by the tie we reached the Richmond 
County line 

100 lace-wings were estimated!! I'm left wondering what if we'd checked the 
stream in 

Richmond County around the corner that hosts a lot more joe-pye-weed if there 
might have 

been even more lace-wings there.

Red-veined Pennants I had just one site in the sandhills for it and we never 
made it there. 

New sites for red-veined were Gum Swamp Lake and the lake downstream on Gum 
Swamp 

Creek, also Scotland lake. I'd have to say that most or all the larger lakes in 
the gamelands 

likely have Red-veined Pennants. Ornate Pennant seemed to be everywhere, more 
than 

most years.

Odonates seen first in Moore County, then Richmond County and lastly Scotland 
County 

county

Comet Darner 			0	0	2
Fawn Darner			1	2	2
Swamp Darner 		0	0	1
Dragonhunter			0	0	1
Georgia River Cruiser		0	0	3
Amanda's Pennant  		0	3	20
Red-veined Pennant 		0	0	5
Calico Pennant 		0	0	14
Banded Pennant 		0	2	15
Ornate Pennant 		0	6	50+
Eastern Pondhawk `		10	30	 50+
Little Blue Dragonlet 		0	5	25
Golden-winged Skimmer	0	4	20
Yellow-sided Skimmer		0	0	5
Slaty Skimmer 		2	3	10
Great Blue Skimmer 		1	0	0
Eastern Amberwing 		0	0	2
Carolina Saddlebags 		0	0	6

Sparkling Jewelwing 		6 	2	3
Ebony Jewelwing		1	0	6
American Rubyspot 		0	0	3
Smoky Rubyspot 		0	3	3
Swamp Spreadwing 		0	4	30
Seepage Dancer 		0	2	10	
Variable Dancer 		4	6	30
Powdered Dancer 		3	8	40
Blue-tipped Dancer 		0	0	2
Cherry Bluet 			0	0	14
Burgundy Bluet 		0	0	6
Citrine Forktail 		0	1	2
Lilypad Forktail		0	0	1
Fragile Forktail 		1	0	3
Furtive Forktail 		0	0	1

Cheers,

Randy Emmitt
Rougemont, NC
Subject: Re: Clear Pond, Horry Co., SC
From: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson AT comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:39:31 -0700
Chris, you should be smug in having such a great place nearby to  
watch the comings and goings of odonates.

I spent about an hour and a half at two lakes in Kitsap County,  
Washington, yesterday, and here's what I saw in comparison:

Spotted Spreadwing - 2
Northern Bluet - 25 (could have included a few Boreal Bluets)
Tule Bluet - 2
Pacific Forktail - 20
Western Forktail - 1
Canada Darner - 25
Variable Darner - 4
probably additional species of Aeshna in these totals
Eight-spotted Skimmer - 8
Blue Dasher - 5
Saffron-winged Meadowhawk - 2

Five or 10 years ago, I would have seen 2-3x as many individuals and  
at least a few more species at these localities, but we are in  
drought, and the species that breed in the shallowest, marshy parts  
of these lakes are disappearing, as well as populations in general  
declining. Imagine drought in the Pacific Northwest, an area defined  
by raininess!

Dennis

On Aug 25, 2009, at 10:20 AM, Chris Hill wrote:

> I visited Clear Pond in Conway, SC today, and a pair of nearby
> retention ponds, too, from about 1020-1150 this morning, I found
>
> Cherry Bluet - 3
> Atlantic Bluet - 3
> Burgundy Bluet - 2
> Citrine Forktail - 3
> Southern Sprite - 4
> Swamp Spreadwing - 14 (!)
>
> Unid. Bluet - 8
> Unid. teneral Damsels - 3
>
> Common Green Darner - 2
> Comet Darner - 6
> Amanda's Pennant - 50
> Red-veined Pennant - 5
> Halloween Pennant - 1
> Banded Pennant - 4
> Ornate Pennant - 8
> Common Pondhawk - 17
> Little Blue Dragonlet - 30
> Golden-winged Skimmer - 12
> Roseate Skimmer - 1
> Blue Dasher - 34
> Wandering Glider - 3
> Eastern Amberwing - 4
> Common Whitetail - 4
> Carolina Saddlebags - 31
>
> The bluets were few, and mostly females or youngsters. One of the
> retention ponds, which used to be good for dozens of Familiar Bluets
> around the edge, is pretty much dead and anoxic now, without a single
> damselfly. I wonder if that pond, which was dug maybe two or three
> years ago, has moved in the successional path past the "familiar bluet
> stage." Lots of Swamp Spreadwings and Red-veined Pennants at Clear
> Pond, probably high counts for each of them there.
>
> CH
>
> ********************************************************************** 
> **
> Christopher E. Hill
> Biology Department
> Coastal Carolina University
> Conway, SC 29528-1954
> chill AT coastal.edu
> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>
>
> 

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson AT comcast.net


Subject: Clear Pond, Horry Co., SC
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:20:15 -0400
I visited Clear Pond in Conway, SC today, and a pair of nearby  
retention ponds, too, from about 1020-1150 this morning, I found

Cherry Bluet - 3
Atlantic Bluet - 3
Burgundy Bluet - 2
Citrine Forktail - 3
Southern Sprite - 4
Swamp Spreadwing - 14 (!)

Unid. Bluet - 8
Unid. teneral Damsels - 3

Common Green Darner - 2
Comet Darner - 6
Amanda's Pennant - 50
Red-veined Pennant - 5
Halloween Pennant - 1
Banded Pennant - 4
Ornate Pennant - 8
Common Pondhawk - 17
Little Blue Dragonlet - 30
Golden-winged Skimmer - 12
Roseate Skimmer - 1
Blue Dasher - 34
Wandering Glider - 3
Eastern Amberwing - 4
Common Whitetail - 4
Carolina Saddlebags - 31

The bluets were few, and mostly females or youngsters.  One of the  
retention ponds, which used to be good for dozens of Familiar Bluets  
around the edge, is pretty much dead and anoxic now, without a single  
damselfly.  I wonder if that pond, which was dug maybe two or three  
years ago, has moved in the successional path past the "familiar bluet  
stage."  Lots of Swamp Spreadwings and Red-veined Pennants at Clear  
Pond, probably high counts for each of them there.

CH


************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
Subject: Re: Fort Gordon, GA 8/23/09
From: "Lois Stacey" <croakie AT comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:25:41 -0400
Dennis,

Depending on which way you go I live 2 to 5 miles from the Savannah River. I'm 
also near the top of a hill, that may be another factor. I just never expected 
to find a Macromia in an urban setting like this. It is an older neighborhood, 
in fact from here to the river is the older part of town, so there are lots of 
mature trees and larger lots, not the usual urban wasteland. 


As near as I can tell they stayed in the lower branches of the pine for at 
least 30 minutes. I went out occasionally hoping at least one of them was 
flying and could be caught but they were always up there. When they finally 
weren't there, they were no where to be found. 


Lois
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dennis Paulson 
  To: Lois Stacey 
  Cc: se-odonata AT yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2009 10:49 PM
  Subject: Re: [se-odonata] Fort Gordon, GA 8/23/09


  Lois,


 I'd say you were just lucky! I don't think there is any way a female can 
signal to a male other than just being visible. How far are you from the 
nearest Macromia habitat? It's always of interest to know where dragonflies 
mate, and I often wonder if many of them don't mate far from water. 



  Dennis


  On Aug 23, 2009, at 7:22 PM, Lois Stacey wrote:




 I spent a few hours this morning bugging along Doughertry Rd and the Rachel 
Lakes on Fort Gordon. There were not a lot of odes to put it mildly. I was very 
surprised that there were few odes of any kind around the lakes, not even the 
usual skimmers. Most of the odes I did see were along the road and nearby open 
areas. I only had 2 individual damselflies total for the whole trip also. In a 
new twist for me, the most abundant ode of the day was Celithemis amanda, not 
the pondhawk! In fact, pondhawk wasn't even a close second, Erythrodiplax 
miniscula was. The total list for about 4 hours is: 


    Celithemis amanda               Amanda's Pennant
    Celithemis fasciata               Banded Pennant
    Erythemis simplicicollis        Eastern Pondhawk
    Tramea carolina                   Carolina Saddlebags
    Pantala flavescens               Wandering Glider
    Erythrodiplax miniscula        Little Blue Dragonlet
    Libellula auripennis              Golden-winged Skimmer
    Argia bipunctulata                Seepage Dancer
    Macromia sp.

 A really strange twist to the day; when I got home I was out in the garden and 
noticed a Macromia in the yard. This ode was patrolling a route about 30 feet 
long between my and my neighbor's house. I've never had a Macromia here before, 
I'm in a small town, but I'm in the middle of it! I went to the car and got my 
net, and the house for binocs, and when I got back there were 2! And just my 
luck, he grabbed her and in tandem they headed up 20 feet or so into a pine 
tree and stayed there. This is not where I expect to have one Macromia, much 
less two. Do dragonflies signal somehow to let mates know they're in an area, 
especially away from water? I've never seen a cruiser near my yard, and today I 
have a pair! 



    Lois Stacey
    North Augusta, SC (Aiken Cnty)
    www.augustaaikenaudubon.org



    


  -----
  Dennis Paulson
  1724 NE 98 St.
  Seattle, WA 98115
  206-528-1382
  dennispaulson AT comcast.net




Subject: Horry County Bug Chase - you're invited
From: Chris Hill <chill AT coastal.edu>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:30:17 -0400
As we have done twice before, Gary Phillips and I will be running  
around Horry County, SC, trying to see as many dragonflies and  
damselfies as possible in a day again.

Tentative date is next Thursday - 3 September.  We're hoping to have a  
completely rain-free day, but if we do it will be the first time.  As  
usual, if anyone wants to joins us for part or all of the day, you're  
welcome to.  We usually visit about 8 sites, and total 35-45 species.   
If all the stars aligned, we could probably hit 50.  Unlike a serious  
birding big day, with constant time pressure and a lot of driving, we  
take our time, Gary does a lot of photography, and has time to teach  
me a few butterflies.

If you're interested in joining us, drop me a line.

For those who have the stamina to browse such things, I put the lists  
from our last two efforts, from a year ago August and this past May,  
below.

Chris

************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm

Good judgement comes from experience. The most useful experience
comes from bad judgement

August 10, last year, on a cloudy day with some rain:

Swamp Spreadwing, Lestes vigilax
Blue-fronted Dancer, Argia apicalis
Powdered Dancer, Argia moesta
Blue-tipped Dancer, Argia tibialis
Double-striped Bluet, Enallagma basidens
Familiar Bluet, Enallagma civile
Cherry Bluet, Enallagma concisum
Atlantic Bluet, Enallagma doubledayi
Citrine Forktail, Ischnura hastata
Fragile Forktail, Ischnura posita
Rambur's Forktail, Ischnura ramburii

Comet Darner, Anax longipes
Russet-tipped Clubtail, Stylurus plagiatus
Royal River Cruiser, Macromia illinoisensis
Four-spotted Pennant, Brachemisia gravida
Amanda's Pennant, Celithemis amanda
Red-veined Pennant, Celithemis bertha
Calico Pennant, Celithemis elisa
Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina
Banded Pennant, Celithemis fasciata
Ornate Pennant, Celithemis ornata
Eastern Pondhawk, Erythemis simplicicollis
Little Blue Dragonlet, Erythrodiplax minuscula
Golden-winged Skimmer, Libellula auripennis
Slaty Skimmer, Libellula incesta
Widow Skimmer, Libellula luctuosa
Needham's Skimmer, Libellula needhami
Marl Pennant, Macrodiplax balteata
Roseate Skimmer, Orthemis ferruginea
Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipes
Wandering Glider, Pantala flavescens
Eastern Amberwing, Perithemis tenera
Common Whitetail, Plathemis lydia
Carolina Saddlebags, Tramea carolina
Black Saddlebags, Tramea lacerata

(and added these the next day, Aug 11, when the sun came back out)
Orange Bluet, Enallagma signatum
Common Green Darner, Anax junius
Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna heros
Black-shouldered Spinyleg, Dromogomphus spinosus
Great Blue Skimmer, Libellula vibrans


May 8, 2009:

Sparkling Jewelwing, Calopteryx dimidiata
Ebony Jewelwing, Calopteryx maculata
Variable Dancer, Argia fumipennis
Blue-tipped Dancer, Argia tibialis
Double-striped Bluet, Enallagma basidens
Familiar Bluet, Enallagma civile
Cherry Bluet, Enallagma concisum
Attenuated Bluet, Enallagma daeckii
Turquoise Bluet, Enallagma divagans
Atlantic Bluet, Enallagma doubledayi
Burgundy Bluet, Enallagma dubium
Orange Bluet, Enallagma signatum
Vesper Bluet, Enallagma vesperum
Blackwater Bluet, Enallagma weewa
Citrine Forktail, Ischnura hastata
Lilypad Forktail, Ischnura kelicottii
Fragile Forktail, Ischnura posita
Rambur's Forktail, Ischnura ramburi
Southern Sprite, Nehallenia integricollis
Elegant Spreadwing, Lestes inequalis
Swamp Spreadwing, Lestes vigilax

Common Green Darner, Anax junius
Comet Darner, Anax longipes
Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna heros
Pygmy Darner sp., Gomphaeschna sp.
Gray-green Clubtail, Arigomphus pallidus
Lancet Clubtail, Gomphus exilis
Prince Baskettail, Epitheca princeps
Umber Shadowdragon, Neurocordulia obsoleta
Amanda's Pennant, Celithemis amanda
Calico Pennant, Celithemis elisa
Ornate Pennant, Celithemis ornata
Common Pondhawk, Erythemis simplicicollis
Little Blue Dragonlet, Erythrodiplax miniscula
Blue Corporal, Ladona deplanata
Golden-winged Skimmer, Libellula auripennis
Bar-winged Skimmer, Libellula axilena
Painted Skimmer, Libellula semifasciata
Great Blue Skimmer, Libellula vibrans
Slaty Skimmer, Libelulla incesta
Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis
Wandering Glider, Pantala flavescens
Eastern Amberwing, Perithemis tenera
Common Whitetail, Plathemis lydia
Carolina Saddlebags, Tramea carolina