On Saturday, June 14, 2025 Derek Dunnett and I led a combined birding and dragonfly outing at Murphy’s Point Provincial Park for the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ and McNamara Field Naturalists’ Clubs. It was restricted to 20 people for carpooling purposes (the park roads are quite narrow for parking) and 18 showed up altogether. Unlike our trip last year, the weather was perfect: cool and sunny in the morning, hot and sunny in the afternoon with a hint of a breeze. Our targets this year included Cerulean Warbler (which had been heard singing earlier in the week), Blue-winged Warbler, and Golden-winged Warbler, while our odonate targets included the diminutive Elfin Skimmer and various stream odonates. Last year the trip had been postponed several times due to rain, and we missed the Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, and Elfin Skimmer as by the time we had visited (July 7) it was late in the breeding season and the weather for ode-hunting (thickly overcast in the morning) was less than ideal.
Late spring is a wonderful time to visit Sarsaparilla Trail. I usually start visiting in May to look for early dragonflies such as Spiny Baskettails and Chalk-fronted Corporals, both of which emerge in good numbers in mid- to late May. It is also a good place to look for Taiga Bluets, often my first damselfly of the year. Friday, May 24th was a beautiful, sunny day despite a cool north wind blowing, so I spent my lunch hour there searching for signs of spring. I began my walk by scanning the shrubs bordering the clearing near the outhouse for dragonflies perching in the vegetation and baskettails flying in the open…there were no emeralds flying on my visit, although there had been over a dozen Spiny Baskettails present only eight days earlier. I did scare up a dragonfly perching close to the ground – it turned out to be a Four-spotted Skimmer.
Sheila McKee Memorial Park has been on my mind all winter. I haven’t been there since 2020, and when thinking of good spots to look for clubtails close to home, I remembered seeing Cobra Clubtails, Lancet Clubtails, and Black-shouldered Spinylegs there later in the summer on my previous visits. The open, rocky shoreline makes it a better spot to see them perching than Mud Lake, and as it isn’t as far as Gatineau Park it was high on my list of places to explore. I started poring over iNaturalist sightings over the winter and was delighted by the additional clubtail species that had been observed there – not only the Midland Clubtail my mentor Chris mentioned seeing back in 2019, but also two rarities: Mustached Clubtail and Arrow Clubtail. I’ve seen Mustached Clubtail once at Sugarbush trail in Gatineau Park, but Arrow Clubtail (Stylurus spiniceps) is so rare that it’s not even on my mental dashboard, let alone my radar. This clubtail is one of the hanging clubtails referred to in a previous post; it perches by hanging vertically from a leaf or branch instead of horizontally on the ground. Perhaps that’s the reason I’ve never seen one, then: I don’t spend too much time looking in trees for odes, unless I happen to see one fly in and land!
Sunny skies, a predicted high of 20°C, and a day off from work on the last Friday in May meant plans to visit Marlborough Forest for the first time this season with my mentor, Chris L. I had convinced her to come with me to trail E4 north of Roger Stevens Drive, home of the Ocellated Emerald, Ashy Clubtail, and Twin-spotted Spiketail – though it was too early for any of those to be flying yet. No less exciting were the possibilities for the early spring dragons that should be on the wing by now: Harlequin Darner, American Emerald, Ebony Boghaunter, and maybe a Springtime Darner or Stream Cruiser. We were sure to see plenty of whitefaces and other skimmers, some baskettails and a Dusky Clubtail or two, and some gossamer-winged butterflies to keep things interesting…the great thing about Marlborough Forest is that it is home to an amazing number of species not easily found in the city, so anything is possible!
Last year a particular OFNC outing caught my eye: a bioblitz to be held at the Morris Island Conservation Area on September 10th. Morris Island is a fantastic place for a bioblitz; the woodlands and wetlands of this 47-hectare site are home to a number of fascinating wildlife species, including several ode species not regularly found in my area of the city. I had never gone ode-hunting in September there before, as September is past the peak of ode season, with fewer species flying than in June or July. Still, it was a good chance to observe what was still flying there, and maybe find an unusual darner species or two. I attended with Chris T. and Chris L. and we photographed seven species for inclusion on the Morris Island Bioinventory Project on iNaturalist: Skimming Bluet, Eastern Forktail, Fragile Forktail, Powdered Dancer, Halloween Pennant, Autumn Meadowhawk, and White-faced Meadowhawk. So much for finding any cool darners!
I did not get out to Marlborough Forest as often as I would have liked this past summer; ongoing medical issues early in the season left me feeling too tired and too sore for the long five-hour outings I enjoyed so much last year. On June 2nd I visited the E6 trail with Rick Collins to look for the Sedge Wrens breeding there. We heard one without too much difficulty, though we weren’t able to spot it. Our other highlight was a female Ruffed Grouse on the trail trying to lure us away from its chicks (none seen) by giving distress calls. It was a gray, drizzly day so I didn’t see any insects worth photographing. Indeed, I didn’t take my camera out of my bag at all.
The weather was much better on June 19th, so Chris Traynor and I went to trail E4 to look for Twin-spotted Spiketails and some different emerald species for his life list. I was also eager to show him the pool below the culvert as this was where I’d seen my one and only Ocellated Emerald hanging out in 2020. It was a bit windy, but the sun was shining and the weather was warm, and the breeze made the usual biting insects less of a distraction.
My first real dragonfly outing of the year occurred on May 24, 2021, and as usual, took place at Roger’s Pond in Marlborough Forest. I invited a few friends to join me now that outdoor gatherings can include up to 5 people, and fellow OFNC members Derek and Gerald decided to join me. It was a warm, sunny day, and I hoped to find the usual common skimmers and clubtails, as well as a few uncommon species that I’d seen previously at Marlborough Forest such as the elusive Ebony Boghaunter and Harlequin Darner. I’ve already seen one boghaunter this season, but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen a Harlequin Darner, and the Cedar Grove Nature Trail has been a repeat site for this ode.
We met at 9:30 am, just early enough to get some birding in while waiting for the sun to rise higher in the sky. We had the usual Nashville Warblers, Black-throated Green Warblers, Great Crested Flycatchers, White-throated Sparrows, Veeries, and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers on the walk in. At the pond itself we had Eastern Kingbirds, a Pied-billed Grebe, Common Yellowthroats and four Ring-necked Ducks. Many dragonflies were already flying along the open trail through the cedar forest, including a few teneral whitefaces and emeralds.
In most years dragonfly season begins around the Victoria Day weekend (which always falls on the third Monday of May). I remember visiting Mud Lake on the long weekend in years past and seeing up to a hundred freshly emerged dragonflies perching in the trees there. However, in the last few years it seems that dragonfly season has started later than normal – the long-lingering cooler spring weather has played a large part in this, as emergence depends chiefly on the temperature of the water the dragonfly nymphs are living in. By the second weekend of May I’d go out eagerly hoping to see the first dragonflies of the year, and by the end of May I’d still be looking for them. Even when I eventually found some, such as last year, numbers would be low, and it would take time for the season to get back on track. Numbers remained low in Ottawa all summer last year for some reason, though we think that the unprecedented spring flooding might have been the cause, either washing away the small nymphs or dumping unhealthy amounts of debris, sediment, and chemical-laden runoff in areas where they breed.
On June 5th I headed out to Dunrobin to spend some time looking for odes and birds. My first stop was the Crazy Horse Trail on March Road at the end of Huntmar Road. This is a relatively new pedestrian-only trail for hikers, skiers, and snowshoers that was developed by the Friends of the Carp Hills under an agreement with the City of Ottawa. It is named for an old tavern that used to stand adjacent to the trailhead but has long since been demolished. The goal of the trail is to provide recreational access to the the Carp Hills on City-owned property while keeping impact on the environment to a minimum. The trail is narrow, and as there is no intention to groom or widen the trail, people are asked to respect the natural areas by staying on the trail, keeping dogs under control at all times (which means using a leash if necessary), leaving no waste, and respecting property boundaries. There are some rough, volunteer-built boardwalks in places too wet to cross which adds to its charm. In fact, all trail maintenance and improvement depends on volunteers, rather than the City, which makes it doubly important to respect the work they have done in creating this trail.
Usually by the time the Victoria Day long weekend arrives the first odes have emerged – in the past I’ve seen baskettails in large numbers at Mud Lake and whitefaces and emeralds in Stony Swamp. This year has been different. A persistent wind from the north has prevented the daytime temperatures from rising much above 20°C; nighttime temperatures are still in the single digits. As dragonfly emergence depends largely on water temperature, it isn’t surprising that I had only seen one dragonfly before the May long weekend, a Common Green Darner at Parliament Hill on May 6th. This is usually one of the first species I see, as they migrate north from the warm south where they emerge. Temperatures had risen from 10°C on May 3rd to 20°C on the 6th, although the morning had started out as a chilly 5°C – perhaps an influx of warm air brought this gorgeous dragonfly up from somewhere where the north wind and flooding weren’t wreaking havoc on the wildlife.
The Stony Swamp trail I spend the least time at, other than Lime Kiln, is Trailhead P11 on West Hunt Club. It’s a lovely trail, but it doesn’t have any marshes with boardwalks; the spring flooding requires knee-high rubber boots; and turning left back onto West Hunt Club into the Saturday mid-day traffic can be a nightmare. Still, it’s a great trail system through some prime mixed deciduous and coniferous forest, and I’ve been trying to visit more often to see what kinds of species make their homes here. It’s better for breeding Wood Thrushes than the other Stony Swamp trails, possibly because the forest is denser with fewer open areas, and I’ve had more Broad-winged Hawks here in the summer than anywhere else. I visited one morning in May while on vacation, hoping to find some new species to add to the hotspot list and perhaps to see some butterflies now that the weather has gotten warmer.
The birding turned out to be pretty good, despite the lack of variety in habitats. A Wild Turkey in full courtship display attempted to block my path, but ultimately decided to mosey off into the bush. A single Field Sparrow was singing in the hydro cut, and the usual Swamp Sparrows were at the marsh. Breeding warblers included Black-and-White Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Pine Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, and 12 different Ovenbirds.
The best part of the trail for wildlife turned out to be the wide-open corridor at the back that leads to the Jack Pine loop. Here I observed a gorgeous male Scarlet Tanager singing at the top of a tree in the open near the intersection, an Eastern Kingbird flycatching, and heard both Winter Wren and Veery as well as a Broad-winged Hawk calling from somewhere overhead.
The sunny corridor at the back of the trail was also a terrific spot for insects. I was hoping to see a few butterflies, and was happy when I found my second Northern Spring Azure of the season as well as both Henry’s and Eastern Pine Elfins.
Then something larger zipped by my head, and when I looked up I saw a dragonfly flying off! I followed it for a while, then saw another hunting the vegetation at the edge of the trail. When it landed I was thrilled to see a female baskettail – my first dragonfly of the season! Although female baskettails aren’t as easy to identify as the males, the short cerci (abdominal appendages) indicate that this is a Beaverpond Baskettail, usually my first non-migrating dragonfly species of the year.
Beaverpond Baskettail
I saw a few more dragonflies flying along the path up ahead, and started walking toward them, flushing a Henry’s Elfin along the way. When I caught up to the dragonflies I realized two different emerald species flying – more baskettails, as well as a couple of American Emeralds. The eyes of both these species develop into various shades of green as the individuals mature; American Emeralds have lovely vivid green eyes, while all four baskettail species have eyes that are more of a turquoise green. The brown eyes of these individuals indicate that they have only recently emerged.
American Emerald
Most emeralds spent more time flying than perching, and often need to be caught with a net in order to identify them. However, I find that early in the season, when they have just emerged, it’s easier to find them perching, particularly the baskettails which spend more time on the wing.
American Emerald
I also saw a couple of small whiteface dragonflies, also freshly emerged as they still had a lot of yellow on their abdomens. Dot-tailed Whitefaces are the most common whiteface species in Stony Swamp, though I’ve seen Belted and Frosted Whitefaces at Sarsaparilla Trail. I was reluctant to leave the sunny open trail and the dragonflies, but it was exciting to know that dragonfly season had officially begun! With so many beautiful insects now taking wing, there’s even more reason to go outside and see what’s around!
June is one of my favourite months. Normally the weather is hot and sunny by the time the solstice rolls around, the birds are all in full song, and newly-emerged butterflies and dragonflies are returning to woodlands, fields and wetlands. However, the weather this month has not been great. The rain from May continued on and off this month, keeping water levels of the rivers and ponds higher than normal, and likely delaying the emergence of many insects. The weekends have been nice, at least; I’ve been able to get out early in the day in order to look for new birds for my year list and any butterflies and dragonflies that may have emerged. While my enthusiasm has certainly declined since our amazing trip to Costa Rica, I’ve found myself regaining interest in visiting trails and conservation areas close to home, hoping to find some species I haven’t seen since the previous summer.
The day after my trip to the Bill Mason Center, I made plans with Chris Lewis and Chris Traynor to head out to the Cedar Grove Nature Trail in Marlborough Forest to look for odes around Roger’s Pond. I would be co-leading an OFNC outing there the following weekend with Jakob Mueller, a reptiles and amphibians guy, and wanted to get an idea of the dragonflies and damselflies that were flying. As we weren’t meeting at the parking lot there until 8:30, I headed out to Sarsaparilla Trail first, then the Rideau Trail for a quick look around.
By the third week of May the weather finally warmed up enough to do some dragon-hunting, so on May 21st I made plans with Chris Lewis and Jakob Mueller to go to Roger’s Pond in Marlborough Forest to look for birds, bugs and herps. We had great luck with all three, though mammals were sadly lacking. I’m not sure why I don’t see many mammals at this trail; the only one I can remember seeing with any certainty was a Snowshoe Hare right on the gravel trail as it ran by me.
OdoNotations 