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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
I wasn’t expecting to find a new species for the Eagleson storm water ponds when I went there this morning, let alone two; my main goal was to look for some Rainbow Bluets in the vegetation around the southern-most pond. My walk started normally enough, with the usual odonates perching in the vegetation: Taiga Bluets, Eastern Forktails, Sedge Sprites, and even a Fragile Forktail. I headed out onto the small spit of land where I used to see Saffron-winged Meadowhawks and Eastern Amberwings perching over the water before the sparse planting of cattails became a solid, impenetrable wall of vegetation. There was one dragonfly here, and I caught a glimpse of the black and white colours as it landed on the ground ahead of me. It was Chalk-fronted Corporal, and at first I thought nothing of it as I snapped a few photos for my iNaturalist project. After all, these dragons were not only common, but also abundant where they happened to emerge. It took me a moment to realize that although I see them quite regularly at Sarsaparilla Trail and in Marlborough Forest, I had never seen one here at the ponds before. It was a new species for my project!
Chalk-fronted Corporal (Ladona julia)
I only saw one as I made my way around the southern-most pond, but then I didn’t have time to check any of the others. Would it be a one-time visitor, like the Racket-tailed Emerald of 2022 or the Violet Dancer of 2020? Or would more follow? I’d seen a noticeable decline in skimmer numbers over the last year or two, so new additions were definitely welcome. There are fewer Common Whitetails, Twelve-spotted Skimmers, Widow Skimmers, Eastern Pondhawks and Dot-tailed Whitefaces around the edges of the ponds than there used to be. While none of these had ever been truly abundant, I would usually see a few on most visits in appropriate weather. I suspect the large number of fish – particularly carp, which feed by disturbing the wetland floor and stirring up sediment containing dragonfly larvae – and growing number of frogs and toads are likely responsible for this decline, but have no evidence to support this theory.
I found some Rainbow Bluets in the vegetation right where I expected them – they seem to prefer the western side of the southern pond – and was reassured when I saw a Common Whitetail a little later, flying over the small J-shaped pond next to the rock bridge before landing on a bare patch of ground sloping down to the water. I was making my way around the pond back to my car, looking for pondhawks basking on the rocks when something black fluttered in the vegetation below me. When I identified it as a male River Jewelwing I was astonished, as this was a species I never expected to find here at the ponds.
River Jewelwing (Calopteryx aequabilis)
River Jewelwings live along medium-sized streams and small rivers with a slow to moderate current and plenty of submergent vegetation. They prefer more open waterways with more sunlight than Ebony Jewelwings, though the two species are often found together along wooded streams. The closest places I’ve seen River Jewelwings are the stream at the back of Jack Pine Trail in Stony Swamp (which I call Spiketail Creek), and Stillwater Creek at Corkstown Road just east of Moodie Drive. The former was a one-time visitor, while the latter was seen during an exploratory excursion in 2015 with Chris Traynor after I saw one away from the water across the road in 2011.
There is a small channel of water that runs south from the Eagleson storm water pond system through farmland before reaching the Jock River at Terry Carisse Park. It has enough of a current to keep it open during mild winters, and I suppose it is just as likely that the River Jewelwing flew up the channel as it is that it flew or was blown south from Stillwater Creek. It’s a mystery as to where it came from and where it was going when it found the ponds, and I expect this to be a one-time visit rather than the harbinger of a new population of River Jewelwings at the ponds.
As I was photographing the jewelwing I saw two Common Green Darners fly by in tandem. This species is common at the ponds, and I usually see one or two patrolling the shoreline every visit in the first couple of months of the season. The pair stopped so the female could lay her eggs, inserting the tip of her abdomen into the water while still connected to the male:
Common Green Darners (Anax junius)
It is always fun adding new species to my project, especially if they become permanent residents: the larger the number of residents, the healthier the ecosystem. Dragonflies and damselflies in particular are good bioindicators of water quality and the health of a wetland, as they require clean water in which to grow as larvae and survive to adulthood. Given that the purpose of the storm water ponds is to collect poor-quality runoff from the surface of the city streets, which often contains road salt, vehicle fluids, bacteria, fertilizers, pesticides and other pollutants, I had my doubts whether these ponds could support a vibrant population of dragonflies. However, with recent additions such as the Orange Bluet, Eastern Amberwing and Band-winged Meadowhawks, whose populations seem to be stable, it seems that the water quality is in fact high enough to allow these species to thrive.
My informal list stands at 35 species as of June 2023, which is the same number as the species recorded on the iNaturalist project, though with two differences: I don’t count the single record of Hagen’s Bluet which shows up there, as the photos do not show sufficient detail for me to identify it; and I do count Prince Baskettail which is not in iNaturalist, as I have seen many but have not been able to photograph or catch one. I don’t count the Northern/Sweetflag Spreadwings which I’ve seen but haven’t been able to catch, either, since identification requires a close view of the male’s claspers….all goals for future visits!
So what species will turn up here next? I’m thinking Powdered Dancer or Halloween Pennant are most likely, but with dragons and damsels one just never knows. As my mentor says, odes – just like birds! – have wings and can turn up anywhere!
Family Corduliidae (the emeralds) is one of my favourite dragonfly families. My love for these green-eyed beauties grew when I started seeing a large number of Williamson’s Emeralds (Somatochlora williamsoni) in Stony Swamp in the summer of 2014; one particular day at the end of June stands out in my memory because I found a total of five emerald species at Jack Pine Trail in one visit (Common Baskettail, Prince Baskettail, Racket-tailed Emerald, Brush-tipped Emerald and Williamson’s Emerald). It was around that time that I realized that I didn’t have to wander too far from home to see such a fantastic variety of wildlife – Stony Swamp in particular is amazing, with the Eagleson storm water ponds close behind. I saw two Williamson’s Emeralds in Stony Swamp in 2018, then none in any subsequent years. The Brush-tipped Emerald population was still present as of last year, with one iNaturalist record (not mine) from Old Quarry Trail on July 1, 2022.
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!
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.
Once migration winds down, many birders stop visiting Mud Lake while they look for breeding birds elsewhere. Although birds such as Wood Duck, American Redstart, Yellow Warbler and Common Ravens are abundant and easy to find at the city’s premier migration hotspot during the breeding season, many of Ottawa’s summer specialties – such as Grasshopper Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Golden-winged Warbler, Mourning Warbler, and Sedge Wren – are found elsewhere, and so most birders switch their focus from looking for migrating transients to chasing these summer residents down just as soon as the last Blackpoll Warblers and Arctic Terns disappear in early June. This is about the same time my attention to dragonflies and butterflies intensifies – and Mud Lake is a great place to find a good variety of both these insects.
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 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.
OdoNotations 