Skimmers – Page 2 – OdoNotations

The 2024 Summer Odolympics

The 2024 North American edition of the Summer Odolympics were held between September 7-15, giving ode enthusiasts two weekends and as much time as a regular working week would allow to collect observations. I had hoped to find 19 or 20 species based on the same period spent collecting observations last year, but as most species are on the decline by this time, I knew I needed both good weather and good luck to come up with a respectful number. Unfortunately, neither luck nor weather were in my favour that first crucial weekend when I hoped to find a few species whose season ended around the beginning of September; it rained most of Saturday, and the temperature never rose above 15°C. Although it didn’t rain nearly as much on Sunday, the weather was worse: it was cloudy, windy, and the temperature never rose above 14°C. In fact, it was the coldest September 8th in more than 70 years (since 1949) and the windiest since records began in 1953 with a mean wind of 21 km/h. With a 1:00am windchill of 1.6 it was almost (within 0.1) the lowest windchill ever recorded on September 7th. Cold, wet, windy nights are even more of an obstacle, as many late-lingering species may not survive the low temperatures. When the sun began peeking out from the thick, fast-moving clouds around 4:30 I headed out despite the wind as to have zero species recorded on the first weekend was unthinkable. I didn’t expect much, and found only two species at the Eagleson ponds: an Eastern Forktail and a Slender Spreadwing.

Cherry-Faced Meadowhawks

Cherry-faced Meadowhawks are much more common in Kings County, Nova Scotia than Ottawa. While I usually see several when I’m visiting the East Coast (in season), I hardly see them in Ottawa anymore. In my early days of ode-hunting I used to turn up males with deep red faces fairly regularly among the multitude of White-faced Meadowhawks, and I’d discovered a reliable population near the Hurdman transit station that persisted for several years. I don’t get there often anymore because it takes too long to get there from work now to make a leisurely lunch-time visit, so for all I know they are still there. It’s been a long time since I have even seen any potential candidates when I’m out ode-hunting in the west end; I think my last was a male in the ditch near near the Eagleson ponds several years ago.

Road Trip: Odes in Nova Scotia

We left P.E.I. via ferry, crossing from Wood Islands to Caribou after dinner. It was dark by the time we arrived at Seabank House in Pictou, a beautiful Victorian bed-and-breakfast overlooking the harbour that looked like something out of a Stephen King movie. In reality this 1854 building was quite charming inside, featuring spacious rooms, stained glass windows, and a grand staircase. This was our favourite accommodation of the trip (not including the AirBnB we stayed at in the Annapolis Valley). We stayed in the Hummingbird Suite with its two canopy beds, and enjoyed a breakfast of Eggs Benedict and fruit and yogurt the following morning. I was hoping to go for a walk along the harbour and look for sea and water birds for my county list before we left, but it was quite foggy outside and I couldn’t see much so I skipped it.

Road Trip: Odes in P.E.I.

We only had one night on P.E.I. (which we spent at a hotel in Summerside across from the harbour) so we didn’t do a lot of hiking or exploring. We spent the day we arrived touring the western side of the island, where I thoroughly enjoyed the birds and views of North Cape, and the day of our departure exploring the eastern half. It wasn’t until the second day that I saw any odonates – we visited the Anne of Green Gables Museum and the birthplace of L.M. Montgomery, had lunch in Charlottetown, then drove across the island to East Point before catching the ferry at Wood Islands to Nova Scotia. When we reached the museum I immediately decided not to join my dad and step-mom on the tour: there was a pond on one side of the driveway, and a small marshy wet spot on the other. I could finally do some ode-hunting!

Marshy area at the Anne of Green Gables Museum

Road Trip: Odes in New Brunswick

My dad, who is almost 75, has always loved to drive. He’s been talking about a road trip to the east coast for a few years now, but in August 2024 we finally did it: he, my step-mother and I left Ottawa on August 10th for a two-week road trip covering Quebec, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Nova Scotia. We had done a similar trip when I was 12, but that trip included a ferry ride to Newfoundland to visit family on my mother’s side as well. Newfoundland is still very much in my father’s plans, and he hopes (as do I) to visit it in a year or two.

As usual, it was my goal to get some nature study and photography in, too, but I knew this trip would feature lots of time spent driving and visiting tourist attractions – my Dad wanted to revisit his previous trips there, including his time in the Navy when he was a youth stationed in Nova Scotia, while my step-mother had never been east before. And with neither of them in peak health anymore, we would have to limit our time on the trails, though there were plenty of national and provincial parks I was interested in visiting.

Finding Amberwings

The Amber-winged Spreadwing at Bruce Pit wasn’t the only good find there on July 14th. Back on July 6th I’d found a different sort of amber-wing: an Eastern Amberwing, one of our smallest dragonflies. I’d also found and photographed a Halloween Pennant, a species I’d seen flying over the water last year but hadn’t managed to find perching. I observed both species on the slope between the fence and the edge of the pond, and both were new for my Bruce Pit list. I asked Chris Lewis if she had seen either species there before, and she told me she had seen Halloween Pennant there in the past, but not Eastern Amberwing – no surprise there, since this is a relatively new addition to the Ottawa area. When I headed over to Bruce Pit after finding the Amber-winged Spreadwing at Bill Teron Park on July 14th, it was to see if I could find any more Eastern Amberwings or Halloween Pennants and get some better photos.

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.

A New Dragonfly at Roger’s Pond

Marlborough Forest is always a fun place to visit, and after failing to find any Brush-tipped Emeralds at Jack Pine Trail earlier this week I decided to go to the E6 trail and Roger’s Pond this morning to see if I could find any of these unique Somatochlora emeralds there. Unfortunately that was not to be the case, but I had a great time and found a nice selection of odes while I was there. At Trail E6 I found many of the usual species, including Racket-tailed Emeralds, Frosted Whitefaces, and White-faced Meadowhawks.

A Three-Darner Day

On July 15th I went to Jack Pine Trail at lunch to look for dragonflies. I was hoping to find some Brush-tipped Emeralds, a species I hadn’t seen there since 2019. I have not visited Jack Pine Trail much in the past five years for a variety of reasons, including closures during the pandemic lockdowns and after the derecho of May 2022. However, the main reason is that I stopped looking for them there after I began visiting Marlborough Forest during the pandemic and saw how common the Brush-tipped Emeralds were on all the trails there. Unfortunately Marlborough Forest is a little bit too far to visit on a lunch hour, but Jack Pine Trail is nice and close. It can be good for baskettails, and it’s the most reliable spot in the area for Arrowhead Spiketails in mid-June. I’ve also had Slaty Skimmer there and two unidentified clubtails that I never got a good look at before they flew off. I usually find something interesting there when I visit, and was hoping to do so again today.

Finding Amber-wings

I have been spending time on iNaturalist lately, looking at historical records of various odonate species and checking what species have been seen around Ottawa recently. This search stemmed from an interest in seeing whether there were any new locations or new records for the Eastern Red Damsel and Amber-winged Spreadwing, two species that used to be common at Bruce Pit but aren’t any longer. The Amber-winged Spreadwing is a relatively hefty species that inhabits various bogs, lakes and ponds, preferably those which do not contain fish. It’s been a good ten years since I’ve seen one at Bruce Pit, and the only other place I’ve seen one in Ottawa is at the Mississippi Snye in 2021. To my surprise one had been reported in Kanata not too far from home: Bill Teron Park in Kanata North. Named for the developer who initially designed Kanata to be a garden city existing in harmony with nature – no straight roads or cookie-cutter houses, while preserving rock outcroppings and areas for parks – it is a delightful pocket of the same rocky, wooded ecosystem found at South March Highlands hidden within an urban setting. There is a small pond here, with the usual dragonflies being seen at the water or along the nearby trails: Chalk-fronted Corporals, Dot-tailed Whitefaces, Common Whitetails, Autumn Meadowhawks, Common Green Darners.

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.

Clubtail Season Begins at Sheila McKee Park

After a couple of wonderful outings the previous weekend, I was looking forward to heading back out to the west end to Sheila McKee Memorial Park to see if any new dragonflies had emerged. However, the weather was most uncooperative – it rained almost the entire weekend. So I took Tuesday morning off work instead, as it was forecast to be both warm and sunny…the temperature had already reached 20°C by 7:00am. My goals were still to look for rarities such as the Mustached Clubtail reported there on May 24, 2021 and the Arrow Clubtail reported there on June 24, 2021. I knew the Arrow Clubtail would be almost impossible, as it is very rare in our region, but as the Mustached Clubtail had a few sporadic reports from Remic Rapids on both sides of the Ottawa River I thought I had at least a shot of finding that species….long though it might be!

The sky was pure blue when I left, and the day’s high forecast was to be a sunny, humid 29°C – perfect weather for dragon-hunting. I left just before 9:00 so I would miss the worst of the rush hour traffic and arrived about 10:20. Being a workday, there were only two other cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and I saw no one on the beach by the time I got there.

Marlborough Forest: Heaphy Road

Last year I spent a cloudy Sunday morning in the south end of Marlborough Forest, looking for for new parts of Marlborough Forest to explore as there were very few odonate records on iNaturalist from that area. I visited four places that looked intriguing on Google Map: an unmaintained trail extending beyond Mulholland Road at Harnett Road; a large wetland further south on Harnett Road directly accessible by car; another unmaintained trail beyond Weedmark Road off of Paden Road; and the Paden Road trail itself. I had hoped to have time to explore Heaphy Road on the western boundary, as Google Maps shows it running through another big wetland and crossing over a large creek before encountering more wetlands. I wasn’t sure what the creek looked like in this area, whether it was a slow, deep, muddy, meandering waterway like the Jock River or if it was a narrow, rocky, fast-flowing stream like those I had seen recently in Nova Scotia. Fast-flowing waters provide habitat to a different variety of odonate species than the slow-moving streams and marshy ponds that make up much of Ottawa county, and I was hoping that there was a fast enough flow to attract jewelwings, clubtails, and perhaps even a spiketail. So far all that had been recorded in that area was Sedge Sprite, Common Whitetail, Dot-tailed Whiteface, and Common Green Darner, all very abundant and widespread species in Ottawa.

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.