Urban Dragon Hunters

No cobras, but another surprise.

2008-07-04T08:50:00.007-04:00

Stylurus here again. Last weekend's weather was unpredictable and hampered our attempts to look for Cobra Clubtails (Gomphus vastus) at Humbug Marsh. We did make it out on Sunday afternoon, even though it was spitting rain here and there. Another problem was high water on the Detroit River. Thus, we didn't have shoreline to search for clubtails. Very few dragonflies were flying due to the

Cobra Clubtail: Unofficial county record

2008-06-22T20:09:00.006-04:00

Last week, Stylurus asked what might we see on our next weekly survey of the Detroit River IWR. Our first new species for the Refuge was sort of pedestrian -- an Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata). After that, things were a little dull. We split up to each do a transect, and were nearing the end of our routes when I got a call on the radio. Stylurus told me he had a different sort of clubtail.

Painted dragons!

2008-06-15T21:32:00.009-04:00

Nannothemis and I performed another dragonfly survey at the Humbug Marsh unit of the Detroit International Wildlife Refuge near Trenton, Michigan. With summer coming along, we knew we'd find greater variety. Soon after arriving I heard over the radio that Nannothemis was stalking a Painted Skimmer (Libellula semifasciata). This would be a new ode for me in the county, as my wife had found the

early ode surveys

2008-06-12T19:45:00.010-04:00

Last year we weren't able to start our odonata surveys to find the early species that are present at Humbug Marsh of the Detroit International Wildlife Refuge near Trenton, Michigan. This last weekend's survey on June 8th added one new species Dot-tailed Whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta) for the refuge. More surprisingly, we had a new early date for Michigan of Spot-winged Glider (Pantala

Urban European Dragon Hunter

2008-06-08T08:56:00.015-04:00

Hallo from Stylurus. I was fortunate to make a business trip to Weilimdorf, Germany at the end of last month. This is basically a suburb of Stuttgart. Upon arriving on the trans-Atlantic flight I had jetlag and decided the best thing to stay awake would be a walk up to Gruener Heiner (a large hill made of WWII debris with a wind turbine at the top). While walking to the hill, I found a

2008-03-18T21:46:00.006-04:00

Nannothemis and I attended the PIF (Partners in Flight) conference in McAllen, TX in mid-February. Of course, we scheduled a couple free days since the lower Rio Grande valley is a great place to search for insects and birds. There are many great locations to explore in the vicinity. During our short trip we visited Santa Ana NWR, Quinta Mazatlan World Birding Center, Bentsen-Rio Grande

Panama Odonata - dry season version

2008-01-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

Stylurus and I were in Panama again for 10 days. Here is a little gallery of the species we photographed. Originally posted 19 January. Updated with expert input from Dennis Paulson 20 January. More info on the gomphid on 21 January. John Abbott weighed in on 22 January. Another adjustment to the gomphid on 29 January. 4 February: Nick Donnelly offers an opinion on the gomphid. Additional

First state record: Band-winged Dragonlet

2007-10-06T19:06:00.000-04:00

There is something unsettling about doing field work with the sun obviously autumnal -- low in the sky -- fallen leaves underfoot...and sweating in 86F temperatures and high humidity. In spite of the the fact that the calendar page flipped days ago to October, we couldn't pass up heading out to do one last survey at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge Humbug Marsh Unit. The USFWS will

Taking to the water

2007-09-23T18:50:00.000-04:00

Part of a grant I received to do baseline odonata survey on USFWS land included larval sampling. It's still a little early in the fall (we discovered) to get a lot of semi-mature (and therefore identifiable to those of us who specialize in adults) larvae. But we decided to spend a glorious autumn day seeing how it would go. We sampled several areas. One was a portion of the Detroit River.

2007-08-30T14:29:00.001-04:00

Nearly two years ago, Nannothemis and I found the first state record of Great Spreadwing (Archilestes grandis) for Michigan in northwestern Wayne County. Last year I was delinquent in checking the location in late summer/early fall. One reason for not visiting was my fear of seeing the area around the stream fully developed with office buildings and restaurants and the watercourse being

Andromorphic female Eastern Forktail

2007-07-30T17:45:00.000-04:00

I found something cool when Stylurus and I were doing our weekly Odonata census at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge Humbug Marsh Unit. Although the final report will only classify relative abundance of each species into one of five simple classes, I have tried to actually count all the individuals we encounter on our transects and plots. This isn't too hard for most dragonflies,

Best population of Great Blue Skimmers

2007-07-14T11:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was doing some bird work in an undersurveyed area in Riverview, a downriver community of Wayne Co. Young Patriot's Park is a place I'd been a couple of times -- ball fields, a playground, library, basketball courts, and a woodlot at the northern end. The name stems from the period (1956-1962) when the site was a Nike missile base. There is a decorative mowed-to-the-edge pond out

The blues

2007-06-24T06:58:00.000-04:00

Last weekend when doing some bird survey work close to home in the urban jungle, Stylurus was surprised to find several Spatterdock Darners, Rhioaeschna mutata, in a small pond adjacent to the channelized portion of the Rouge River. This is a species we first had a glance at in 2005, and which eluded our nets at a retention pond in 2006 -- the first records for the county. Believe me, we know

We score!

2007-06-18T11:41:00.000-04:00

In our long quest to voucher Anax longipes for Wayne County, we ended up the 2006 field season with a score of Comet Darner 4, Urban Dragon Hunters 0. Let's recap: 2004, seen at Sherwood Park, Sumpter Twp. several times, first county sight record.2005, seen two different occasions at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, Humbug Marsh Unit (DRIWR).2005, seen in Northville Twp. in a

Long time, no see

2007-06-16T19:10:00.002-04:00

I realize this is a crappy photo, but it was beyond the range of the macro lens I had on my camera at the time. It's a Four-spotted Skimmer (or chaser, as you folks across the pond say), Libellula quadrimaculata. There are only three specimens from the county, all before 1917. Now there are four. We found it, and one or more conspecifics, in a retention pond behind a Wal-Mart in Canton, a

New yard ode

2007-05-29T20:01:00.000-04:00

Stylurus here! It's always nice to be surprised by a dragonfly. While tinkering on the patio, I heard some pitter-patter on top of our open garage door. The door is hinged at the top and when open it is horizontal to the ground. I did a couple of vertical jumps to see what was making the noise and a female House Sparrow flew off to the adjacent conifer. Just as I made my second jump, a

Stream Cruiser: One for the books

2007-05-03T19:37:00.000-04:00

One ode I did not note in my previous post about Kentucky was a brown-and-yellow, medium-sized dragonfly we saw in several places while at Berheim Forest. They were patrolling the margins of two lakes, one a large (32 acre) lake, the other lake about a third that size. They were in constant motion, never perching, and hard to get on with binoculars. We could see the cerci were pale. This had

Early Kentucky dragonflies

2007-04-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

With all the weird weather, Stylurus and I have ended up getting our first real ode hunting in by going south, back to Kentucky, where Stylurus had to attend a meeting. We had time for a a few hours at Berheim Forest, a huge arboretum and forest reserve south of Louisville. Fragile Forktail, Ishnura posita -- 5 Common Green Darner, Anax junius -- 1 Springtime Darner, Basiaeschna janata -- 2.

A new season

2007-04-03T17:10:00.000-04:00

We're you worried the Urban Dragon Hunters had eyeballed their last Enallagma? No, we're still here, having endured another Michigan winter and looking forward to the 2007 field season. I saw my first adult ode today, presumably a Common Green Darner, although I was going 30 MPH in one direction and it was speeding in another. I think this is one of the earliest records in the state. As it is

Nabokov's blues

2006-12-19T06:52:00.000-05:00

A neat article in the New York Times: In the 1940s, a decade before achieving international renown with “Lolita,” Vladimir Nabokov solidified his reputation as a lepidopterist by reclassifying the wide-ranging North American butterfly genus Lycaeides, the “blues.” Nabokov divided the blues into two large species — Lycaeides melissa, the Melissa blue, and Lycaeides idas, the northern blue, with

Urban Dragon Hunter gifts!

2006-11-09T16:24:00.000-05:00

Autumn came early and often this year, so to speak. We've already had snow more than one day, and lots of frosty nights, putting a fork in the odonata season. Our taste of Indian summer came today (and I did indeed see an Autumn Meadowhawk, Sympetrum vicinum), but it is supposed to get cold again tomorrow, with a chance of snow on the weekend. To remind myself of warmer days, I put together

More Mexican sunshine

2006-10-09T12:17:00.000-04:00

Slough Amberwing, Perithemis domitia, Boca del Rio, Veracruz State, Mexico.

Dos Dragonlets

2006-10-06T09:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of Erythrodiplax from coastal Veracruz state, Mexico. Band-winged Dragonlet, E. umbrata. Black-winged Dragonlet, E. funerea.

Dragonfly schwag

2006-10-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

This was quite a splurge, but I've been eyeing it for some time, and finally gave in. How cool will it be to give out my business card from this groovy holder, from Kyle Design?

Elusive Clubtail no longer eludes us

2006-09-09T18:27:00.000-04:00

Buoyed by our success at Humbug a couple weeks ago, we returned last weekend two days in a row. It was breezy and cool, and just about everything eluded us. Russet-tippped Clubtails were still present, but we saw them in lower numbers. Nearly the whole brownfield is covered with goldenrods and eupatorium, and the bee and wasp numbers were truly impressive. When I told Mark about this, he and