Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Tomorrow is the summer solstice, 2010. Just a few notes on dragonflies I’ve seen recently.

Yesterday I visited McLindon trails just east of Kalamazoo. There were lots of Spangled Skimmers – sorry, no photos. It was late afternoon after the storms had passed.

Today I visited the Allegan Forest – first visit in a few weeks. The cool wet spring has made it as lush as ever. With all the logging activity south of the river – really in the heart of the forest – I’ve been spending my time more on the edges and peripheries. Mostly the fields and woods north of the river. Here I was pleased to encounter a male Widow Skimmer – these guys are always very skittish and difficult to approach, but this individual was quite accommodating. By the end of the session her was darting off his perches and feasting on the cloud of mosquitoes that was buzzing around me. It was cool to hear the flitter-flap of his wings when he darted near my ears.

Best shot I got of him:

There was a female Widow there as well, and ultimately they flew off together – let’s hope to make many more of their kind for future summers.

After that, I went on to look for Blue Dashers. I saw a fully mature male Blue Dasher a few weeks ago, in Kalamazoo. He had the striking blue and yellow coloration that give make these dragons stand out. But all of the individuals I encountered today were either immature or female. Here’s a shot of one of them, all light and airy in its spring field:

Twelve Spotted Skimmers were everywhere:

I also chased after Damselflies, Clubtails, and many other bugs while out in the woods – here’s a shot of a Robber Fly, one of the first of the morning:

And so it goes. I drove by the Old Farmstead, and it is still the hub of for a logging operation that is gnawing in the forest for many miles on all sides. I was tempted to hike down to see how the seasonal marsh was faring, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Can a place die? Or does it just suffer from ongoing deprivations? Who knows. But I don’t see any point to walking back there and seeing the latest. Maybe someday.

The seasons are slowly following the path from spring into summer. It can be a bumpy ride – a hot and muggy week followed by a few days of shocking coolness. But the frosts are gone, the trees have greened, and most spring flowers have past or faded. Spring ephemerals are long gone, lupine is fading quickly, but coreopsis is just coming into its peak and the grey headed coneflowers are just building foliage. And so the dragonflies change as well. Here are a few photos from the two weekends – first, Brown Spiketails - Cordulegaster bilineata - from this weekend and last:

A Common Whitetail - Libellula Lydia - perched over water:

Splendid Clubtail - Gomphus lineatifrons:

And lastly, a joined pair of Black Saddlebags - Tramea lacerata:

It’s a rare treat to run into a dragonfly species that I have not seen before, even if it is a fairly common one. Such was the case last Saturday when I stumbled into a female Belted Whiteface, Leucorrhinia proxima, formerly called the Red Waisted Whiteface.

I spotted this individual on the levee near the Swan Creek Dam. At first I thought it was a Dot Tailed Whiteface, given the dark abdomen and the prominent yellow spot on it’s back. But it was noticeably smaller than the Dot Tail and flew and perched differently – often coming to a perch and obelisking on plant stems a foot or so above the ground. The white underside of the abdomen really stood out, and I realized that this was something different.

Here’s another shot showing the markings on the back of the abdomen, similar to the Dot Tailed Whiteace:

Though hard to see on the web sized image above, there are clearly three rows of cells radiating out from the forewing triangle, which is a good ID guide for this species. (This led me go back and check the wing cell pattern in the Frost Whiteface, that I spotted last summer, and I confirmed that was correctly identified based on the two rows of cells following the forewing triangle.)