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.
The weather was supposed to be warm and sunny yesterday, so I headed out to the Bill Mason Center to look for marsh birds and dragonflies. Chris Traynor had found a Crimson-ringed Whiteface at the sand pit early in the season last year, and as I’ve never seen this species in Ottawa, I was curious to find out if his dragonfly was a chance visitor or if they were common there in the late spring. While this species has a flight season from late May to early August, I have never seen it there during any of my summer visits to the Bill Mason Center. I was also hoping to find a few marsh birds such as bitterns, Sora and Virigina Rail, so it seemed like a great idea to stop there after checking out the Carp Ridge and some of the roads in Dunrobin for other species.
On Victoria Day I returned to Mud Lake to look for migrants and dragonflies. I arrived early – before 7:00am – in order to beat the crowds, but even at that time there were a few people wandering around. I started at the ridge and worked my way around the conservation area in a clockwise direction; I hoped that by exploring the quieter side trails I would come up with a decent list for the morning. Well, I did finish my outing with a good number of bird species – 43 total – but most of them were found along the northern and western sides, which is where I usually bird anyway, especially when I am short on time.
By the third week of May the weather finally warmed up enough to do some dragon-hunting, so on May 21st I made plans with Chris Lewis and Jakob Mueller to go to Roger’s Pond in Marlborough Forest to look for birds, bugs and herps. We had great luck with all three, though mammals were sadly lacking. I’m not sure why I don’t see many mammals at this trail; the only one I can remember seeing with any certainty was a Snowshoe Hare right on the gravel trail as it ran by me.
On April 16th my fiancé Doran and I took our first trip outside of Canada and the U.S., spending the week in Cozumel, Mexico. We chose it because when we had originally been looking at going on a cruise, it was one of the destinations we particularly wanted to see because of the Mayan ruins close by, and a one-day stop didn’t seem like enough time to see the region. I was also interested in the wildlife there, though that would have been true of any destination!
We flew from Montreal to Atlanta at the ridiculous hour of 5:45am, having driven from Ottawa the night before and staying at the Marriott in the terminal. It was after 11:00pm by the time we went to bed, and I didn’t sleep a wink – we had to get up at 3:00am for the flight. From Atlanta we flew to Cozumel, arriving at 1:30pm. It was very hot and humid, and I was completely overdressed in my jeans and long-sleeved sweater. We passed through customs and security without any problems despite the long line and arrived at our hotel (the El Cozumeleno Beach Resort in the northern hotel zone) by 2:00.
The end of September is a good time to see a variety of hover flies (also known as flower flies, syrphid flies, or syrphids). It is also the end of dragonfly season. Most odonates are already done for the season – only a handful of species will continue flying into October, with the last species, Autumn Meadowhawk, flying into November if the weather cooperates.
As the last week of September was still quite warm, I was able to find and photograph a few different species of both insects – even in my own backyard! I finally added Autumn Meadowhawk to my official yard list on September 19th. I’ve seen a few meadowhawks in my yard over the years, but have only identified White-faced Meadowhawk and Band-winged Meadowhawk so far. I found it on the asters at the back of the yard, although it flew up onto the fence when I tried to get closer for a photo. Given how abundant and widespread it is, the Autumn Meadowhawk was the most likely species to be added to my yard list. Now that it has shown up in my yard, I’m not sure what the next likeliest species is – Common Green Darner? Twelve-spotted Skimmer?
In July 2011, I photographed a large Arigomphus dragonfly at Petrie Island. It had greenish eyes, a dark abdomen with rusty-coloured spots on the bottom of the last couple of segments, and an entirely yellow tenth segment. I only got two photos of the clubtail before it flew off, but the two angles showed that there was no black on the sides of the final abdominal segment. According to my research, only one species in Ontario has an entirely yellow tenth segment – the Unicorn Clubtail, a southern species that wasn’t even on the Ottawa checklist. Based on my photographs, which show the completely yellow tenth segment, a few of Ottawa’s most knowledgeable students of the odonata concluded that it could only be a Unicorn Clubtail – a new record for the region, and the 123rd species observed in the Ottawa area.
Unicorn Clubtail
Unicorn Clubtail
In July 2012, I was part of a team of dragon-hunters which went looking for this species at Petrie Island. The team included Bob Bracken, Chris Lewis, and Mike Tate. Bob and I spotted a large Arigomphus dragonfly, and I took one quick photo before he tried to net it. His attempt failed, and this photo is the only record we have of that 2012 clubtail. Again the image shows an entirely yellow tenth segment.
Unicorn Clubtail
In June 2015, Chris Traynor and another member of the OFNC Facebook group photographed Arigomphus dragonflies with what appeared to be entirely yellow tenth abdominal segments west of Ottawa. It seemed strange for the Unicorn Clubtails to pop up suddenly in the west end, especially since there had been no Unicorn Clubtail sightings anywhere in the region since 2012. Chris Lewis, Chris Traynor and I decided to post our photos to the Northeast Odonata Faceboook Group, which includes many prominent members of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, several professional writers, bloggers, and authors, and other really knowledgeable dragonfly enthusiasts who have been studying these insects a lot longer than Chris, Chris, and I have.
After studying the images I posted, Ed Lam, the author of Damselflies of the Northeast: A Guide to the Species of Eastern Canada & the Northeastern United States (2004), noted that the cerci (upper claspers of the terminal appendages) appear shorter than the epiproct (the lower appendage) in the photos, which supports the similar-looking Lilypad Clubtail (A. furcifer) rather than Unicorn Clubtail (A. villosipes). He then took the time to photograph these two species with the appendages in the exact same position as the ones in my photos. The resulting diagram he put together was conclusive:
Arigomphus appendages (by Ed Lam)
Not only are the upper claspers shorter than the lower clasper, they are even the same shape with a heavy downward arch.
In the Facebook discussion, Chris Lewis responded with the comment that “structure rules again” – that is, structure is more important than colour or pattern when it comes to identifying odes. She also asked about the extensive pale yellow colour on the tenth segment of the two dragonflies I photographed. According to the Algonquin field guide and other online resources, the Lilypad Clubtail has only an elongated yellow spot on top of the tenth segment- the sides of the segment are very dark. She asked Ed if the extent of the paleness down the sides was variable in both species. Ed answered that in his experience, the amount of darkness on those last segments is variable on both Lilypad and Unicorn Clubtails.
So there it is – there are no Unicorn Clubtails in Ottawa (that we know of), and the next time someone spots a clubtail with an entirely yellow tenth segment, it’s best to check the shape and size of the claspers, as these are the most reliable field marks for identifying an odonate to species.
Author’s Note: Many thanks go to Ed Lam for the use of the image comparing the claspers of each species, and for his helpful comments on Northeast Odonata. Even though I lost a lifer, I gained a lot of knowledge about these two species and how to differentiate them. This knowledge will hopefully serve me well in the years to come, and is worth more than a tick on a checklist. Though it was kind of cool having a first Ottawa record while it lasted…! 🙂
I had a fabulous outing in Stony Swamp this morning. I started the morning by birding at Sarsaparilla Trail where I found a pair of Pied-billed Grebes and a Merlin perched in one of the dead trees at the north end of the pond; it was so far off that I had to return to the car and get my scope to identify it. I was glad I had brought my scope, for as I was scanning the vegetation along the shoreline I discovered two heron species skulking at the edge of the pond: a tiny Green Heron poised on a log, and an American Bittern that was almost invisible in a gap in the reeds! It made me wonder what other birds were present, going about their lives while remaining hidden from view.
On August 16th Chris Lewis and I went to the Bill Mason Center to do some dragon-hunting. As the weatherman was predicting a steamy high of 30°C with 100% humidity, we met at 7:30 in the morning in order to beat the heat. For the second day in a row, a thick early-morning fog hung low over Ottawa, but once we arrived at the sand pit we found a bright, sunny morning with no trace of fog. It was really starting to warm up by then, but as it was still early in the day, all we saw at first were a couple of darners we accidentally scared up from the vegetation along the northwestern side of the pond. None were cooperative; instead of settling back down in a spot where we could see them, they zoomed off altogether.
On August 2nd, 2015 I led a dragonfly outing at Petrie Island for the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club. Because I would be leading it on my own, and because the small size of dragonflies and damselflies makes it difficult to point them out to large groups, I decided to limit the group to ten people. Fellow dragon-hunters and Birds Committee members Chris Traynor and Lorraine Elworthy signed up for the outing, as did Jakob Mueller, who led the reptile and amphibian outing at Sheila McKee Park earlier in the year. I recognized Lynne Ovenden from the OFNC; the others were all unknown to me.
I started our outing by talking about the differences between dragonflies and damselflies, as well as the different groups belonging to each family. We would be looking for spreadwing damselflies, which hold their wings out at a 45° angle instead of parallel to their back; emeralds and darners, which are most commonly found flying through the air searching for aerial prey; and skimmers, which tend to hunt from a perch and are usually the most approachable types of dragonflies for photography. As I was speaking, a bright green female Eastern Pondhawk was hunting from a perch in the vegetation, often flying out to snatch an insect from the air. At one point it even landed on one of the group members!
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.
On July 24th I took the afternoon off work and spent it at Andrew Haydon Park. I didn’t think I’d find anything too exciting in the middle of summer, but this park is one of the few places that is easy to get to by bus from downtown (provided you don’t mind the walk from Bayshore Station up to Carling Avenue) and I figured I’d have a look around. I wasn’t planning on looking for anything in particular, as I didn’t have either my scope or my net with me; I just thought I’d enjoy the gorgeous summer afternoon outdoors and look for herons, Spotted Sandpipers, waterbirds, and whatever breeding flycatchers, vireos and swallows might be around. I really didn’t think that I would find many odonates of interest, as it’s not a place with much species diversity, but as it turned out I found myself far more entertained by them than by the birds.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been dragon-hunting in Gatineau Park – well over a year, in fact. Even though the park is quite close to Ottawa and has great dragonfly diversity, I rarely venture across the provincial border. This is mostly because I’m wary about going alone, but also because the main roads in the park are closed on Sundays (my preferred day for travelling due to lighter traffic) as a result of the NCC Sunday bike-days. However, I’ve been really impressed with all the species Chris Traynor has been finding there, and so we decided to venture up there together one Sunday. Fortunately Chris knew a few alternate routes to get us to our destination, the Sugarbush Trail (which Chris calls “Clubtail Trail” after all of his great finds) near the Chelsea Visitor Center and Meech Creek.
In early July my fiancé and I spent some time in Nova Scotia, spending a night in Cape Breton before heading to the Annapolis Valley where he grew up. We decided to drive down to save on costs, spending the first night in Woodstock, NB as we did in 2008 and our second night in Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. There we stayed at the Silver Dart Lodge right above Bras d’Or Lake near the start of the Cabot Trail. The property was lovely, with single rooms in the main lodge and small chalets available for rent (we stayed in the main lodge). Situated on 90 acres, the property boasts a pool, a playground, a gazebo overlooking the small, rocky beach, and best of all, hiking trails in the woods.
We arrived in the early afternoon. Doran wanted to rest after the long drive from Woodstock, but I felt compelled to explore the property. I could hear the lovely song of a Northern Parula coming from the trees behind the lodge so I decided to start my exploration with a walk along the hiking trails. There was a charming wooden frame at the entrance of the trail; I spotted movement just above it and was surprised to see a very young robin perching on top of the frame.
Walking Trail at Silver Dart Lodge (click to enlarge)
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