Emeralds – Page 2 – OdoNotations

To See an Elfin Skimmer

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.

New Dragonflies at Bruce Pit

I’ve been spending time on iNaturalist again, updating my list of odonates found at various places around Ottawa and making a list of target species that others have seen that I have not. Bruce Pit was of particular interest to me, as Chris Lewis had sent me her personal list of species last summer; I was missing quite a few species she had seen (though I had found others she had not). Between her list and those listed in iNaturalist, I counted nine regular species that I was missing from my personal list: Black-tipped Darner, Harlequin Darner, Dusky Clubtail, Lilypad Clubtail, Common Baskettail, Prince Baskettail, Emerald Spreadwing, Orange Bluet, and Stream Bluet. One reason is that I usually don’t visit Bruce Pit early in the dragonfly season when some of these species are flying, while another is that sometimes when I visit I only check one or two areas. As a result, I planned to visit the conservation earlier in the season and see if I could find some new species for my personal list.

Nova Scotia in June

Back in March my partner and I bought a trailer in Nova Scotia. We don’t have any property yet so it is currently parked next to a relative’s house. This will give us a place to stay when we go back instead of spending money on an Airbnb – though we have stayed in some nice ones over the years! This also means I could buy a second dragonfly net and leave it there for those occasions when we fly instead of drive.

We took a vacation during the first week of June so I could see it for the first time. It’s amazing – 40 feet long, with an actual bedroom, living area, kitchen area, and dining area and even an electric fireplace! Although it is 12 years old, it has been immaculately maintained with new furniture and a new furnace. We spent the first two days furnishing it and getting to know how it works – the weather was lousy (cold, overcast and blustery) so I wasn’t interested in spending much time outdoors anyway.

The 2025 Ode Season Begins!

I usually see my first dragonfly of the year in April, which is not surprising given that the first dragonflies migrate here from further south during the first prolonged warm spell of the month. They are always Common Green Darners, heading north to find new ponds and lakes in which to breed. It isn’t until later in May, usually the second week when temperatures are consistently in the 15-20°C range, that the local species emerge, chiefly skimmers and emeralds and, of course, damselflies. However, this season it didn’t warm up to 20°C until the very end of the month of April. It was still warm by the time the first weekend of May arrived, and on May 4th I finally saw my first Common Green Darners at a small pond in Stony Swamp – three males, it appeared.

Second Sightings

On August 4, 2020 I was surprised to find a Violet Dancer on a dirt trail at the Eagleson ponds. The closest place I’ve ever seen this species to home is out near Morris Island, so it was a shock to find one practically in my own backyard. Then in 2022 I found a few near the Jock River behind the former Richmond sewage lagoons. This suggested where the one at Eagleson might have come from – still a fair distance for a tiny damselfly, but not insurmountable if the winds are blowing the right way. I didn’t expect to see another one there any time soon; if anything, Powdered Dancer was next on my list of species I expected to show up there, because they are much more abundant and widespread along the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers than the Violet Dancer, and breed at the same location on the Jock River behind the former Richmond sewage lagoons. However, when I took a walk there on July 16 after work, it was the first odonate I found, resting on the rocks near the bridge.

Canada Day Clubtails – Part 1

On July 1st I spent the morning at Sheila McKee Memorial Park with the full intention of heading out to Pinhey’s Point afterward. My goals were to get to Sheila McKee early enough to look for the Yellow-throated Vireo and Yellow-billed Cuckoo that had been found there recently, then look for dragonflies in the open meadow and along the river shore. I was hoping to find another Mustached Clubtail, or perhaps an Arrow Clubtail, or the first Cobra or Midland Clubtails of the season. It was a bit cool in the morning, so I waited until 8:30 am to leave. When I got there just before 9:00 there were already several cars in the parking lot, and by the time I headed out to the road to listen for the elusive cuckoo a cavalcade of cars was turning into the parking lot from Sixth Line Road.

A Dazzle of Dashers

After leaving Mud Lake I went to Sheila McKee Memorial Park to try my luck there. I was hoping that the whitefaces would still be flying, as I wanted to find some fully mature individuals after seeing so many tenerals and immatures right before my trip to the Maritimes, and I was hoping that some clubtails had emerged. It was still sunny, only about 18°C, and while the wind was still blowing, the small clearings in the woods at the top of the escarpment were relatively protected. I didn’t see any odes other than a few Powdered Dancers until I reached the main clearing where the trail leading down to the water branches off to the right. Some smaller dragonflies were perching in shrubs at the edge of the clearing, and I was delighted to find some freshly emerged Blue Dashers – both males and females!

Dragons in the Wind

On June 15th I visited Mud Lake for a morning of birding and ode-hunting. It was about 13°C when I arrived at 8:30, and although it was sunny, the persistent breeze made it feel cooler. Still, there were more odes about than I had hoped for, although at first I saw only a few damselflies (Eastern Forktails, Fragile Forktails and Powdered Dancers) and Dot-tailed Whitefaces. It wasn’t until about an hour into my walk that I came across my first interesting odonate observation of the day: a lilac bush with several dragonflies perching on its branches. It was the Spiny Baskettail landing on an exposed twig that caught my attention, and while I was trying to photograph it a few more dragonflies landed nearby: first a Blue Dasher and then a Prince Baskettail! These large emeralds are the least likely of the baskettails to land, so seeing one perching is always a treat.

Sarsaparilla Trail Predators

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.

Moncton, NB: A sunny day in Riverview

We arrived in Moncton late on Wednesday, June 5th. Our AirBNB for this stay was a basement unit in Riverview, the small town situated on the south side of the Petitcodiac River and a short drive from both downtown Moncton and the Moncton Coliseum, home of East Coast Comic Expo. I had already scouted a few places that looked good for both birding and and ode-hunting; these included Riverview Marsh contained within a bend of the Petitcodiac River for Nelson’s Sparrow, Mill Creek Nature Park for forest birds and stream dragonflies, Bell Street Marsh for marsh birds and odes, and a small stream in a hydro corridor near Mill Creek for Superb Jewelwing, a potential lifer for me.

Trout Lake, NS: Interlude

After leaving Yarmouth we drove to our next stop on the tour, a cottage on Trout Lake south of Middleton in Annapolis County. The lake was nice, but quiet: there was a small sandy beach with several rocks protruding from the water at either edge of the property. A little bit of emergent vegetation made for some great perches for skimmers and damselflies, but I didn’t see either during our short stay. The weather was cool and cloudy for most of our time there, which, combined with the early season – there were no Slaty Skimmers or Calico Pennants flying yet – likely had a lot to do with a lack of odes at the water.

Both of the days we were there dawned with the sky completely covered in cloud. It was cold our first morning there, so cold that I didn’t even want to go for a walk along the gravel road. Instead we went into Greenwood to get breakfast, pick up some groceries, and check out a few rocky creeks and waterfalls that we had visited on past trips. The thick blanket of clouds covering the sky showed signs of breaking up by the time we finished our errands, so we headed to a small trail on Rock Notch Road that looked over Fales River and a medium-sized waterfall that once powered a water mill from 1857 to 2002.

Yarmouth NS: The Yarmouth County Rail Trail

On our final day in Yarmouth I was ready for a change of scenery. It was a bright, sunny day, but once again the wind made it feel much cooler so I gave up on the idea of driving down Cape Forchu to the lighthouse. I knew it was my last chance to see the ocean and find some ocean birds before leaving for the Valley, but I also knew the wind blowing off the ocean would be cold, and I didn’t have any winter gear with me. I consulted Google, and found a few spots that looked interesting – the Yarmouth County Rail Trail near Arcadia, a tiny community just down the road from the Y-Con Comics convention, and Tusket Falls, which is a little further away and has an interesting walking trail close by. I liked the idea of visiting Tusket Falls for river-loving dragonflies, while the Yarmouth Rail Trail passed by the Chebogue river, which might be good for looking for odes in the vegetation nearby. The Yarmouth Rail Trail actually becomes the Tusket Falls Walking Trail a little further east, too long of a hike from where I planned to access it in Arcadia, but easy enough to drive to once I’d seen enough of the Chebogue River.

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Chebogue Meadows

On my second day in Yarmouth I headed out to the Chebogue Meadows Wilderness Trail not far from the Hebron Recreation Complex. I had wanted to drive down to the Cape Forchu lighthouse to look for seabirds, but the chilly north wind was uncomfortable and I figured it would only be worse by the ocean so I decided to head inland instead. Chebogue Meadows sounded like a great spot to look for birds and bugs; it was an eBird hotspot, with a whopping 33 species listed before my visit, including many northern-type warblers and thrushes. Interesting to me was the river at the back of the loop visible on Google maps, but what made it especially appealing was an online description of a trail that takes you through 12 distinct habitats via footpaths and boardwalks including softwood forest, a black spruce swamp, a meadow, a hardwood upland, and wetlands.

Emeralds and Whitefaces at Sheila McKee Park

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!

Hudsonian Whitefaces of the Bog

Although it’s been warming up nicely, I haven’t seen many dragonflies since witnessing the wonderful mass emergence of Spiny Baskettails at Mud Lake on May 12th. So when Chris T. told me he was thinking about going to Mer Bleue on the weekend, I decided to join him. Mer Bleue is ecologically significant as one of the few accessible bogs in eastern Ontario, hosting many different species not found in typical forests or wetlands. There were a couple of butterflies in particular I was hoping to see, the Brown Elfin and Jutta Arctic which I last saw in 2012, as well as the aptly-named day-flying Black-banded Orange Moth (Epelis truncataria). Several bog-loving odes were high on my list, chiefly Sphagnum Sprite, Ebony Boghaunter, Harlequin Darner, and Hudsonian Whiteface, all of which I’d seen here in my early ode-hunting days with Bob Bracken and Chris Lewis. I was also secretly hoping to stumble upon a Somatochlora emerald or two, as they are more likely to be found in the Mer Bleue bog than on the side of a random house in Nepean….or so I hoped!