I am a lover of nature whose primary interests are birds, butterflies, and dragonflies. While I enjoy photographing them, my main interest is in observing and learning about the species I see through my lens. For those of you who are interested in seeing the best of my nature photos, please feel free to check out my gallery on Pbase.
Although Saturday morning started off overcast, the clouds began to break up around noon and the sun started shining through. I headed out at 1:30 to hit a few spots close to home in case it started to rain: the former sewage lagoons at the Richmond Conservation Area, and Jack Pine Trail to look for emeralds. The Richmond CA ended up being a terrific place to spend some time. I saw a female Ebony Jewelwing along the small path between the parking lot and the lagoons; although this isn’t the first time I’ve had one here, it is the first one I have photographed and added to iNaturalist.
All week I’ve been dodging rain showers to get out and find dragonflies to add to my Odolympics species total. It figures the sunniest day of the week was Tuesday, when I had to work downtown. Almost every other day was overcast, and it rained heavily on Thursday and most of Friday. Limited to checking only areas close by, my dreams of tallying a large number of species completely fizzled out in the sub-optimal weather.
The forecast for today called for rain, and it rained hard on and off all day, with zero odes seen (I didn’t even try to leave the house). This leaves only one more weekend and whenever I can get out at lunch or after work on my work-from-home days to find some new species for the Odolympics. The forecast does not look promising.
When I got up this morning it was the type of day I’d been dreaming about all spring – already warm at 8:00, with dazzling sunshine, a clear blue sky, and lush green vegetation so vivid it finally burned the visions of the bare, brown woods and dull grey skies of early spring out of my memory. I’d been planning this excursion all week – I was heading to points west, starting at Sheila McKee Memorial Park, then onto the Bill Mason Center with maybe one final stop if I had time – I would be performing in a choir concert that night, and didn’t want to wear myself out or get home too late to get ready! I didn’t realize until later in the day that it was June 13th – the first day of the Odolympics, but even if I had it wouldn’t have changed my plans that much.
Terry Carisse may not have the highest diversity of odonate species, but it is worth visiting for the ones that inhabit this small park, namely Orange and Rainbow Bluets, Skimming Bluets, Stream Bluets, Elegant Spreadwings, and Fragile Forktails. Various skimmers show up along the edge of the water fairly frequently, particularly near the boat launch at the north end, but never in large numbers. My best skimmer find to date has been a Slaty Skimmer seen back in 2022 and then never since.
Other dragonfly families are less common. The only darners I’ve identified here are Common Green Darner and Lance-tipped Darner, while the only emeralds I have observed are Prince and Common Baskettails. I have never seen a clubtail, cruiser, or spiketail here, although I suppose there is a faint chance that individuals belonging to the first two families may show up here from suitable habitat nearby. The list as of this morning stood at 25 species, and I have never given much thought to what might show up next. Perhaps not all the darners cruising over the lawn in the late summer are Lance-tipped Darners, and there might be a Canada Darner among them. Perhaps a Wandering Glider would join them. Perhaps another type of spreadwing – such as Spotted or Northern – would show up at the water’s edge.
We are now about four weeks into dragonfly season here in Ottawa and my dragonfly woes continue. There just don’t seem to be the number of individuals present as there should be. On June 3rd I visited Andrew Haydon Park to see if there were more odes flying there. While there were plenty of teneral damselflies in the vegetation – too fresh and colourless to properly identify – I only saw three dragonflies. Not three species – three individuals. One was a Common Whitetail that escaped my camera. The other two were Common Green Darners laying eggs in the pond that didn’t. I walked around the two ponds and checked the eastern creek and the small beach at the mouth of Graham Creek (which was almost non-existent due to high water levels) but did not find nearly the number of dragonflies that I was expecting.
Monday was finally warm and sunny, reaching 20°C, with only a hint of a breeze. I hope it’s not going to be one of those years where the weekdays are sunny and beautiful while the weekends are rainy and cold! I headed over to Terry Carisse Park on the Jock River on my lunch break to test my theory that rivers and streams would have more odes than marshes and ponds badly affected by last year’s drought. This not a great park for dragonflies but an excellent one for damselflies. When I scanned the lawn for baskettails I did not see a single one – I’ve had Common Baskettails here the last two years both flying over the grass and over the water. I checked the river in three different spots and the only dragonfly I saw was a Common Green Darner on patrol. I didn’t even see any damselflies lurking in the vegetation at the canoe launch.
From there I returned to the lawn and began checking the sunlit vegetation on the east side. At last I had some luck, finding both Eastern and Fragile Forktails in relatively small numbers.
Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita)
Both immature and mature individuals were present – I did not see any mature females. There were perhaps four or five of each.
Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis)
I did not see any other damselflies on my walk – no Skimming Bluets, Stream Bluets or Rainbow Bluets. It’s still early in the season for some of those species, but at least it’s a start!
The dragonfly season for odes that emerge here in Ottawa (as compared to those that migrate from further south) usually begins for me on the May long weekend, if not earlier. Odonate larvae need the waters they inhabit to warm up to a specific temperature in order to begin the transformation process, and this usually requires several days of heat and strong sunshine. Unfortunately this year the temperature was slow to warm up, with many days of cloud and northern winds that made it feel cold even when the sun was shining – I didn’t put my winter coat away until the first day of the long weekend because morning temperatures were still quite cold!
I saw my first dragonfly of 2026 on April 17, 2026 – two days after the date of my first sighting in 2025. These sightings both occurred at the same pond in Stony Swamp along NCC Trail 24, located in the forest east of Bridlewood and west of the large Sarsaparilla Trail pond. I started visiting the trail last spring when I noticed it was a great spot to listen to the early spring frog chorus – Spring Peepers, Boreal Chorus Frogs, and Wood Frogs are all present and calling by mid-April. I am not sure why the pond attracts these early Common Green Darners; perhaps the shallow depth allows the water to warm up quickly, which in turn leads to the hatching of the aquatic insects that the dragonflies (and frogs!) feed on.
I didn’t get a photo of the two males I saw chasing each other over the water on April 17th, but a few days later I spotted at least three or four males patrolling the hydro cut in Monaghan Forest. April 22nd was a warm, sunny day and I had headed there to look for spring ephemerals and early migrants. There was no mistaking the flash of wings of the darners as they zipped through the air. One of them landed, and I got some great photos.
Common Green Darner (Anax junius)
The beginning of dragonfly season is always exciting, even though the first dragonflies that appear are almost always the Common Green Darners that migrate north on the warm winds of April. Other species won’t arrive for several weeks – those are the ones that breed here, and need the ponds and streams to warm up enough to trigger their transformation. If the weather stays warm and sunny for a prolonged period of time they will emerge sooner rather than later – one year I started seeing dragonflies (the early-flying American Emerald and Beaverpond Baskettail) on the 2nd of May! However, if the days remain cold and cloudy, they may not emerge until later in the month. By the Victoria Day long weekend the dragonflies start to emerge in large numbers, with a large number of species taking wing. In another month ode season should start really heating up! Until then, look for the newly-arrived Common Green Darners mating and ovipositing over the water of local ponds, or hunting for insects in sunny meadows and open areas close to water.
The end of the 2025 dragonfly season came to an abrupt end for me. In 2023 and 2024 the warmth extended well into October, which extended the flight season of many species. That was not the case this year. While daytime highs were still quite warm, staying in double-digits until October 24th, nights got cold fairly quickly. A cold spell right in the middle of the month saw two nights fall just below zero; daytime highs were only about 13°C. After October 23 nights were all below 3°C, with five nights just below zero. As a result, I did not see as many dragonfly species this month as I had in previous years.
It was just a quick trip to Cambridge, Ontario, but the weather was so gorgeous I couldn’t resist dragging my dad out for a few nature walks. Although in his mid-70s now, he is still mobile enough to get out, and while I’m looking up for birds and dragonflies, he is usually looking down for snakes and turtles or turning over logs for salamanders.
Because it was late in the season I had checked iNaturalist ahead of time to see what odes had been recorded at the beginning of October. I was blown away when I realized that American Rubyspots were still flying, and that they lived along the Grand River! Their range does not extend to eastern Ontario – they are a southern Ontario bug, though funnily enough there is a population in Montreal.
The drought this summer has been awful – we’ve had less precipitation than normal every month from May through September, and not only are ponds and creeks drying up, but people’s wells are running dry. Ottawa received 48 mm of rain in July, (typical average: 88 mm), 48.2 mm of rain in August (typical average: 79 mm), and 32 mm so far in September (typical average: 90 mm) with still no rain in the forecast. A visit to Richmond Lagoons revealed only a puddle of water in the middle cell – the one which normally has the most water – and the Jock River behind the former sewage lagoons had been reduced to a trickle of water. Meanwhile, Bruce Pit has a large sandy shore which has made it impossible to find odonates that like to perch on emergent plants and stems. I went to Roger’s Pond on September 14th expecting more of the same, but was still shocked by how very little water was present.
Earlier this year I spent some time exploring the creeks of Kanata in an attempt to find some of the creek-loving odonates that inhabit Gatineau Park on this side of the Ottawa River. While I was happy to find new places for damselflies such as Aurora Damsel, Ebony Jewelwing and River Jewelwing, I wasn’t able to find any creek-loving clubtails, darners or spiketails. One place that intrigued me was Brassils Creek in Marlborough Forest. It meanders through a large portion of the forest, though it is wide and marshy in most places where the trails cross it, with a slow-moving current similar to the Jock River. Google maps shows that this creek passes beneath Flood Road just off of Upper Dwyer Hill Road, and on July 12th I spent an hour exploring the area to assess its potential for odes.
Mature Elusive Clubtails are difficult to find. The best way to find one is by simply being in the right place at the right time – a strategy that requires a little knowledge of its preferred habitats and an enormous amount of luck. My first two encounters with a mature adult were entirely unexpected. I was in the right habitat, but as I was fall-birding at the time I wasn’t expecting to see any particularly exciting dragonflies…and unfortunately, the luck that led to my discoveries was of the bad variety – bad for the dragonfly.
I wasn’t planning on looking for dragonflies when I got up early on the morning of August 27th and went for a short drive to Bridge Street just around the corner. I was curious about what type of bridge I might find – and what kind of stream or creek flowed below – as Google Maps showed an open marsh to the north of the bridge and a wooded creek to the south; I was hoping that I could access the water in case it turned out to be a good spot for odonates.
Bridge Street
Marsh north of Bridge Street
Unfortunately, there was no way to get to the water. The land on surrounding the marsh was entirely private, and the water emptied into a gulley on the other side of the bridge with banks too steep to climb down.
Interestingly, the stream below the bridge appeared to be contained within series of rectangular concrete “locks” – perhaps these locks are completely submerged when water levels are normal and the stream is in full spate. I will have to check again next year to see if this theory is true, but in the meantime it looked like an interesting place to go exploring!
Contained Stream below Bridge Street
Despite the lack of water access, it turned out to be a great spot for birds, and I spent almost half an hour there before I had to log onto work. A flock of early migrants was making use of the trees above the marsh, and I saw several Cedar Waxwings, at least two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, two Gray Catbirds, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, an Eastern Wood-Pewee, and several warblers including Black-and-white, Yellow-rumped, and Black-throated Green. It was a good thing there were so many birds to watch as I would have missed a pair of darners in a mating wheel fly by if I’d left earlier. I was surprised as it was not even 20°C and still quite cool for odonates; perhaps one of the birds startled them out of the trees. They zoomed around for several seconds locked together, letting me get a long enough look to confirm them as some sort of darner. My first thought was that they were Shadow Darners, as they were quite dark in appearance and lacked the large abdominal spots of other Aeshna darners. Then, to my delight they landed; however, they landed well above my head where I had a tough time seeing them and even more difficulty photographing them. This was the best image I could get, and the brown colouration and mint-green eyes of the male (top dragonfly) made me realize they were NOT Shadow Darners.
Ocellated Darners (Boyeria grafiana)
There are two brown darners in eastern North America, usually called spotted darners due to the distinctive yellowish-white spots on the thorax. These medium-sized darners prefer shady forested streams where they often fly late in the day, patrolling in dimly-lit wooded environments. The Ocellated Darner tends to prefer faster streams than the Fawn Darner, usually with rocky bottoms. Both species are found in Europe, where they are referred to as “spectres”- a much cooler name!
I had seen plenty of Fawn Darners in Quebec but had never seen an Ocellated Darner before. They can be tricky to tell apart, but the Ocellated Darner is more grayish overall while the Fawn Darner is a warmer shade of brown -often looking yellowish in flight. The Ocellated Darner has a very small brown patch at the wing base while the Fawn Darner has larger brown patches. The pale spots on the abdomen and are larger and more prominent in Ocellated Darners. The mature Ocellated Darner has eyes that are brighter and greener than those of the mature Fawn Darner. The cerci of the female Fawn Darner are longer than the cerci of the female Ocellated Darner, which are short enough to mistakenly believe they have broken off.
Although my photo isn’t crisp, it shows enough detail to identify these as Ocellated Darners – a lifer for me! The female’s cerci are short, the male’s eyes are bright green, and both lack brown patches at the base of the wings. In addition, the spots along the abdomen are clearly visible in the male, while those of the Fawn Darner are usually too small to detect from a distance. This ID was confirmed on iNaturalist- my 56th species in Nova Scotia!
It was incredible that I had found this species just around the corner from our trailer. Even better, I had found the male and female in tandem, something rarely seen…females are often difficult to find, and it is believed they lay their eggs after dark. Ocellated Darners prefer cooler temperatures than other dragonflies, flying later in the evening and also on cooler days which explains why they were active so early in the morning. This was definitely the best find of the trip, and now that I know they are there I will have to keep an eye out for them!
OdoNotations 