Belted Whiteface – OdoNotations

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.

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.

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!

Dragon-hunting in the Carp Hills

On June 20, 2021 I accompanied fellow OFNC members Derek and Erik to the Carp Barrens Trail off of Thomas Dolan Parkway to assist them in a survey of breeding birds and other wildlife. Because of the sensitivity of the ecosystem and number of at-risk species which breed here, this trail is closed to the public during the summer. In order for us to access the site, Derek had acquired a permit to allow us to look for unique breeding birds such as Black-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Towhee, Common Nighthawks and Whippoorwills. Derek and Erik started around dawn to listen for both nightjars, but heard none. I joined them at 6:00 am while they were still walking along Thomas Dolan Parkway, and together we entered the trail system.

The trail follows a rocky outcrop around a long slough. Many birds were already singing, and we heard the typical open field and woodland edge species: Field Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Veery, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and many warblers, the best of which (in my humble opinion) included two Pine Warblers, two Yellow-rumped and two Nashville Warblers.

Jack Pine Specialties

The day after the excellent snaketail adventure in Gatineau Park, I headed over to Jack Pine Trail to see if any of its unique dragonflies were on the wing. Two years ago I found a healthy population of Brush-tipped and Williamson’s Emeralds, and Arrowhead Spiketails are regularly seen along the stream at the back. Although I’d heard that it takes four years for Williamson’s Emerald larvae to mature, I had hopes of at least finding the Brush-tipped Emerald; I still think it’s amazing that all these wonderful dragonflies live and breed so close to home. I was also hoping to find some spreadwings, as I’ve seen both Northern and Emerald Spreadwings along the trails here in the past – though none in the past couple of years.

The odes of Sugarbush Trail (Gatineau)

On the first Saturday in June I made plans to meet Chris Traynor at the parking lot of the Sugarbush Trail in Gatineau Park to look for dragonflies. He has re-named this trail the “Clubtail Trail” due to the large number of clubtails that breed there, and I was eager to find some new species for my life list. Unfortunately our last visit there wasn’t terribly productive due to the overcast skies; the weather on Saturday was much nicer, sunny and warm even in the morning.

As we weren’t planning to meet until 9:00 am, I stopped by Sarsaparilla Trail first to check out the birds there. This turned out to be a fantastic idea as I heard a Least Bittern calling somewhere in the reeds to the north of the boardwalk and a Virginia Rail grunting somewhere on the south side. Other species included Brown Creeper, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, a couple of Tree Swallows, a Marsh Wren singing in the reeds at the end of the boardwalk (the same one from last year?), a couple of Yellow Warblers, a White-throated Sparrow, and two Purple Finches.

Mid-summer

It’s hard to believe that it’s mid-summer now; July is over, August is here, and songbird migration is only a few weeks away. When it comes to insects, I’m not thinking as much about seeing the first species of the season as I am wondering whether each individual (except for the darners and meadowhawks) is my last of the season. There are some species I seem to have missed completely this year, such as Emerald Spreadwing (which has a flight season from mid-June to mid-August), Horned Clubtail (mid-May to early July), Stream Cruiser (late May to mid-July), and any of the hairstreak butterflies (the peak of their flight season occurs in the first half of July). This is the result of a combination of bad luck and bad weather; I missed most of these bugs when I went looking in places where I have seen them before, and when I wanted to return later, the cold, overcast and/or rainy weather on the weekends prevented me.