I spent some time today at Bruce Pit with the hope of seeing some darners there – ever since my trip to my Dad’s trailer in southern Ontario I’d been hoping to spend more time with some of these large, lovely dragonflies in Ottawa. Mud Lake can be a good place to find them, but I’d seen none earlier this morning, so I was thinking about other places where I might find them. I recalled that Chris Traynor had found a Variable Darner late in the season last year (September 18, 2015) along the hydro cut at Bruce Pit, and decided to head there next. My plan was to spend some time near the water looking for spreadwings and skimmers, then check out the hydro cut for darners. I didn’t find much around the water other than an abundance of Lyre-tipped Spreadwings, so I headed up into the grassy area at the edge of the toboggan slope.
Almost right away I saw a beautiful Black-and-yellow Garden Spider sitting in its web. These large orbweavers – as well as the Banded Argiopes – used to be really common at Bruce Pit and other open grassy fields in Ottawa, but seem to have declined over the past few years. An Ambush Bug was lurking on a flower, while a Woolly Bear caterpillar crawled along a stem nearby.
There were quite a few spreadwings still present – more than I had expected after so much time had passed since my first visit. The vast majority were Lyre-tipped Spreadwings, identifiable by their S-shaped paraprocts. The pattern of pale blue pruinosity on the last three segments is also quite distinctive.
A few Spotted Spreadwings were present, too – these are one of the latest-flying damselflies in our region. Their paraprocts are much shorter.
I only saw three dragonfly species – Twelve-spotted Skimmer, Autumn Meadowhawk, and White-faced Meadowhawk. We’re still a month away from the fall equinox, but ode diversity has definitely decreased since my last visit.
As I wasn’t seeing very many odes, I headed to the field on the east side of the pit. I was still looking for darners, and had also seen an American Copper butterfly in the same area several years ago during the month of September. It was clouding over slightly, and darners can often be found perching in tall vegetation when the sun isn’t shining. Unfortunately none of my efforts turned up any roosting dragons, so I continued on my way to the hydro cut.
The sun had come out by then, and I saw a few darners high up in the sky – the tinted wings looked more like Common Green Darners to me than the Variable Darners Chris had found in this area. Of course, none of them landed or even came close enough to catch, but I could tell they weren’t the mosaic darners I was looking for. Still, I had a great time, and found more than enough beetles, bugs, bees and butterflies to keep me enthralled. And the season ain’t over yet – still plenty of time in the next few weeks to find some darners!
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