Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Here’s a quick rundown of the Dragonflies and Damselflies I’ve run into so far this spring.

True to their reputation as being the first spring dragonfly, Dot Tailed Whitefaces now dominate. This is their day in the sun, and they are making the most of it. They are now abundant in the Allegan State Game Area, and seemed to be equally abundant in the Barry State Game Area.

Many of these dragonflies have the glassy shiny wings of new hatchlings. I have yet to see any old-timers with torn and tattered wings, but am starting to finally encounter members of this species with their full adult markings – specifically, all black abdomen except for a single yellow dot.

I’ve encountered many mating pairs and expect more subjects throughout the early to mid summer.

The next dragonfly species to emerge is the common whitetail. I spotted one immature individual last week -sorry, no photo - but have yet to see others.

Several different species of damselflies are out, not uncommon but not abundant. I’ve seen – but not identified – several spreadwings and common blue damselflies. Here’s a photo of what I believe to be a Sedge Sprite.

The weeks ahead should bring an explosion in different species…

UPDATE: A couple of hours after writing this post, an immature male Common Whitetail appeared in my yard. It’s a rarity to see dragonflies in my very urban, very small side yard, so it was a real treat that this individual showed up.

Here’s a photo:

Hiking around the Allegan Forest earlier this week, I trudged down the remnants of a small two track that was cut into the side of hill along the Kalamazoo River. I guess people used to drive down there to launch small boats, but the DNR did a good job of dumping tree stumps at the start of the road, and it’s been unused for years.

Now the hillside is full of wildflowers. Earlier in the season I stopped by this spot to photograph some hepatica. This week the hill is covered with May Apple, the last few blooms of Spring Beauty, Canada Violet, and the green and waxy leaves of Hepatica.

Here and there were some wild columbine plants – pretty large and full of blooms. A splash of sunlight caught the front boom on this pair of flowers in just a little more light than the one behind it. It’s wonderful when things work out.

This spring has been a cool one. Here we are, late in the month, and the furnace still rumbles to life every morning. Frost settles onto the grass and rooftops at night. It melts once touched by sunlight, but tenaciously hangs on to north facing hillsides, or in the shadows of large trees.

Despite the cool weather, the season advances. Dot tailed whitefaces are now abundant in the Allegan State Game Area. Last Thursday I visited my favorite pond. For a change, I parked on the south end of the pond and hiked a bit through s scruffy stand of white pines. I came up on the south shore of the pond, rounded the west side, and worked the usual sandy fields on the north.

Dot tails were pretty much everywhere. The even flitted around the pine trees. On the savanna there were often 4 or five n a square yard – perching low on grass stalks or just landing on the sandy soil. A few green darners buzzed around in the air, and I spotted one or two damselflies around the pond.

It won’t be long till the meadowhawks and pennants appear – though the patch of raspberry bushes where they usually first make their first appearance is now several feet under water. Well, they’ll show up somewhere.

Forty Two. I just took a look at the “pending uploads” directory on my computer, and found 42 images prepped and ready for upload to this blog. There are lots of hepatica and other spring flowers, a few shots taken on the road last fall, one or two curiosities.

I’m beginning to see a flaw in my plan for this blog. As things start to pick up, the supply of photos will continue to grow. Heck, if I just post four images a week, I’ll still be busy through July. I could stop photographing things altogether, and just sail along with the supply on hand. I’d continue on like a freight train with the brake lever pulled,  propelled only by momentum and inertia, the planned destination  now irrelevant.

Well, maybe the answer is more quicker shorter posts that kick out images faster. So in that spirit – a shot of Bellwort taken the week before last. This drooping spring flower is easy to miss, and like the nodding trillium requires a really low angle approach to be photographed. 

As May progresses, I lose interest in the woodland wildflowers and find myself drawn to the oak savanna. I don’t know why.

This dry and barren place comes to life more slowly than the fertile lowland forests. Maybe it is the sight of the first spring dragonflies on the wing. Maybe it is the fading redbud and the fresh dogwood. Maybe it is the weird creature – coyote? fox? dog? - that charges across my path as I wander into the woods…

But the Allegan forest still calls. Some days I just drive around in my car, listening to the radio, bumping along two tracks till they end with barriers made out of tree stumps, torn out of the ground, roots and all.

The lupine is blooming now. It started last week, it’s probably peaking now, and in a few weeks will pass.

I trudged around the woods today, toting the trusty Pentax LX packed will Rollei IR 400 film, hoping to get the IR effect in a few shots. The weather did not cooperate as a dense bank of clouds rolled in shortly after I started shooting. No matter – I shot the film and then turned my attention to the lupine.

I’ve shot this wildflower before, and have found the leaves and foliage to be as interesting as the flowers. But I never studied the immature flowers – the nascent buds building up strength, waiting to open. There’s always something thing new, waiting to be seen.

The Rollie film is hanging in my shower as I type - drying. Maybe something for a future post…

West Michigan is finally awaking from its winter slumber. In the last week or so the trees have leafed out, the grass has greened, and perennials are shooting up out of the ground.

The arrival of dragonflies is another sure sign that spring has taken hold. Green Darners are the first to arrive in mid April. The early arrivals are migrants from parts south. It takes several more weeks for the waters in the area to warm up enough to support the dragonfly nymphs, and for those nymphs to actually transform into the winged adults.

Locally, the Dot Tailed Whiteface is one of the first dragonflies to complete this process. Last Monday I was happy to see the first few adults flying over the dry grass of still brown fields.

The dot tails that I encountered last Monday all had the sheen on their wings that tells you they are newly emerged. Their coloration is in the immature form – they will lose most of the yellow and turn to black, except for the dot on their abdomen and their white faces. True to their nature, the dot tails clung to vegetation very low to the ground, making photos a bit difficult. But their arrival is welcome, and means it won’t be long before Calico Pennants, Spangled Skimmers, and other dragons abound.

Another year in all the millions of years that these creatures have graced the Earth….

A few days ago I wandered into the Allegan Forest. I was greeted with washed out roads, flooded ponds, and swollen creeks and drains. But walking through the sandy pine barrens I was also greeted by … garterribbon snakes.

These harmless little snakes don’t grow over a few feet long. They are quick and agile, eating primarily amphibians and fish. I ran into the first one along the edge of a pine forest. I had to press the camera into the sandy soil to get a low angle shot of the serpent, but the subject was very cooperative and just watched me as I crawled on my stomach on the ground next to it. (I guess we had something in common.)

Later in the day, as I wandered out of the pine forest that borders the pond that used to be a marsh, a much larger garter snake slipped through the field, making its way through the dried grass. It was much more energetic than the first snake – perhaps because it was basking in full sun. It mugged for the camera briefly, and then glided away to the pond’s edge.

Spring ephemerals carve out their environmental niche in the early part of the season. They flourish in the early days of spring, when sunlight streams through the leafless trees and hits the ground with full force. As trees leaf out and sunlight is cut off from the forest floor the wildflowers retreat for another year.

As the season progresses, the flowers change. I visited some favorite places last Friday, and found the forest floor to be full with trillium, nodding trillium, wild ginseng, and bellwort. Wild Geranium and Jack in the Pulpit are just starting to appear. Hepatica and bloodroot are long gone. Marsh marigold and anemones are fading. Another year, and another turn…

Trillium grandiflorum is one of the last spring flowers to really carpet the forest floor. Large patches of these flowers fill the moist soil of the spring forest. Their large, white, showy flowers really catch they eye.

Nodding trillium is less common. It has smaller flowers that droop down below the plant’s three part leaves. You can wander right by it and not notice, and to photograph it you have to get really low to the ground.

This spring has been a wet one, and the trials I normally travel through the woods were muddy and washed out. Photographing nodding trillium, which requires getting very low to the ground, is a real exercise in “wet belly photography.” I leave the woods with several memory cards full of photos – and a jacket and jeans full of mud.

Spring is great!