Four-spotted Skimmer – OdoNotations

Continuing Dragonfly Woes

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.

A Slow Start to the Season

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!

Sarsaparilla Trail in July

Sarsaparilla Trail is always worth a quick visit in the warmer months, even with the limited access to the water. The pond is fairly large, and I’ve often wondered just how many species actually live and breed here away from the boardwalk – the only point of access to the water. On June 18, 2025 I added a new species here to the list of Stony Swamp odes, a female Horned Clubtail that landed on the boardwalk and stayed long enough for some photos. After seeing that magnificent dragonfly I wasn’t expecting to add another new species to the list anytime soon, but that is what happened on one of my visits this month.

The circular trail through the woods is short – the inner loop is only about 0.5 km – so most times I only stop by for a quick walk on my lunch break while working from home, or a short visit after returning from somewhere else. My July 8 visit was a lunchtime visit, and although there were lots of clouds in the sky, the odes were flying around the pond as usual.

Exploring Kanata’s Creeks

Last November I spent some time on Google maps looking for accessible creeks around the fringes of Kanata north where I might find some creek-loving odonates. If a tiny fragment of a stream in Stony Swamp could hold Arrowhead Spiketails, who knows what other species might call these small streams home? I wasn’t expecting anything as magnificent or scarce as a Mustached or Eastern Least Clubtail, but I thought that Stream Cruisers, Fawn Darners, River Jewelwings, and maybe a spiketail might be possible.

A few areas looked particularly interesting, including a section of Shirley’s Brook between Station Road and Monk Environmental Park, the stream that drains the eastern end of the Beaver Pond near Lismer Pines Park, and Stillwater Creek where it runs between Corkstown Road and the Trans-Canada Trail, aka the Watts Creek Pathway. Although all of these streams run through green space, the surrounding areas had become built up with new homes and developments over the years. The Crystal Bay/Lakeview Park subdivision just south of Andrew Haydon Park is long-established, with a narrow band of trees running between the subdivision and Highway 417, but the area around the Beaver Pond off of Goulbourn Forced Road started being cleared for housing relatively recently (around 2010), starting with the controversial Terry Fox extension, and houses are still being built there to this day. The forest is thickest in Monk Environmental Park where there is little encroachment so far, and my hopes were highest for this little park as a result.

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.

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.

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!

Searching for the Arrowhead Spiketail

Spiketails are large, brightly coloured dragonflies that inhabit small or mid-sized streams, usually with a good current in forested areas. There are three species present in eastern Ontario, all with dark brown or black bodies, green eyes, and bold yellow patterns along the abdomen that may cause them to be confused with clubtails in flight. Each species has a dark thorax with two vivid yellow stripes on the side and two smaller yellow dashes on the top. It is the pattern on the top of the abdomen that distinguishes them: the Arrowhead Spiketail has a single line of yellow arrows pointing toward two round spots at the tip; the Twin-spotted Spiketail has two lines of yellow spots with straight tops and rounded bottoms running down the abdomen, set close together; and the Delta-spotted Spiketail has two lines of widely-separated spots running down the abdomen, each pointed and distinctly triangular in shape. Because of their habitat requirements, they are considered local and uncommon, and in Ottawa the Arrowhead Spiketail is considered the rarest of the three.

Dragonfly Emergence

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.

Arrowhead Spiketails in Stony Swamp

Perhaps more than Mud Lake, the one place I enjoy visiting most during migration and the summer breeding season is Stony Swamp. Pre-Covid it was always less busy than Mud Lake, especially early in the morning; however, after the pandemic hit the trails have become really popular and the parking lots are getting full before 10:00 on the weekend. If my goal is to look for birds, I try to get there before 7:00 am; but if it’s insects I’m looking for it doesn’t matter so much, as insects are not as likely to be disturbed by people, and I arrive whenever it’s convenient for me. It’s still quieter during the week than on the weekend, so I arrived at the Beaver Trail at 8:15 hoping to find some good birds as well some interesting insects as the day warmed up.

Dragonflies at Mud Lake

By the end of June it seemed that summer had finally arrived and the weather had returned to normal: the temperature had reached a consistent near 30°C, the state of emergency caused by the unprecedented spring flood had ended on June 12th, water levels were returning to normal, and the sun had finally come out! I was hoping that this meant that the dragonflies were also emerging on schedule again, and decided to head to Mud Lake on the last Saturday of June. Mud Lake is a fantastic place to see dragonflies in mid-summer, as all the dragonfly families except for Cordulegastridae – the spiketails – can be found there. Among the damselfly families both the spreadwings and pond damsels are well-represented; the broad-winged damselflies, mainly Ebony Jewelwings, are seen there from time to time. I had high hopes for my visit.

The Beginning of Dragonfly Season

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.

Crimson-ringed Whitefaces

When I got back from Costa Rica I didn’t much feel like doing any birding back here in Ottawa. I’d been spoiled by all the colourful, tropical birds and exotic species that I’d seen – Costa Rica was a dream come true for me, and it was hard to return to reality. As soon as I got back I started thinking about a return trip there, wanting to spend more time in the rainforest so I could see birds such as Cotingas, Jacamars and Bellbirds. And oh, the hummingbirds and tanagers there!

It was difficult to get excited about birding in Ottawa, and the weather didn’t help. It was cold and rainy when we left and still cold (only 16°C) when I returned. The thought of going dragon-hunting stirred my interest somewhat, and when the weather warmed up the weekend after we got back, I decided it was time to take my net out of hibernation.

Dragon Blitz 2016 – Part II

After leaving Sarsaparilla Trail I drove over to the NCC parking lot on Corkstown Road and followed the bike path beneath the Queensway to the place where Chris Traynor had seen the Eastern Red Damsels earlier in the week. The spot isn’t hard to find; just keep following the path parallel to the Queensway as it passes over a small bridge and skirts the northern edge of a farmer’s field. Eventually the path reaches a small woodlot and abruptly turns south; before you get to the small stand of trees, watch for an NCC sign on the left about the crops of the Greenbelt. Chris had found the damselflies in the grass behind the sign.

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.