Yup.

Yesterday was nineteen degrees and sunny - on the 18th of November, I could hardly believe it. Today, it's cold and grey and rainy, and forecasted to snow in the evening. So it seems that our last gasp of fall has officially passed, and now we need to brace ourselves for winter.

But for now, I'm going to remember this glorious, drawn-out fall instead of dwelling on what's to come.

New Territory

Despite the chill in the air this morning, I took myself out to the Hespeler Mill Pond to try and find some of the Greater White-fronted Geese that had been hanging around there lately. Of course I didn't find any. But hey, according to my life list this was my first ever Gadwall, so the trip wasn't a complete loss:

Mostly it was a lot of Mallards, although a sizeable flock of Green-winged Teal came in to land as I was on my way out. A few Northern Shovelers, a few Hooded Mergansers. Two very complacent Mute Swans.

I probably should have brought my scope out and made sure there was nothing hiding in the distance. But after last time, I decided to check out the trail and the vantage points before lugging that thing along. It wasn't an entirely terrible decision, most of the pond was visible enough with just binoculars and/or camera, and there weren't any good places to set up a scope towards the end of the pond that was more interesting (i.e., the marshier end, away from the dam). Still. There were a couple of shorebirds out there, probably yellowlegs but who really knows. And some of those Mallards might really have been Black Ducks or something I suppose. Ah, well. Next time.

The Doldrums Commence

Well, the first frost has frosted, the Juncos have arrived, and the orange on the trees is shading towards brown. Fall is officially on the decline, and winter has to be just around the corner. It's going to be another long, slow countdown to spring. Perhaps longer and slower than usual this year, since I'll be impatiently waiting not just for migrant warblers and green growing things but the dragonfly emergence... kind of feel like I was cheated this year, picking up dragonflies so late. I barely got to survey anywhere at all.

I've been plotting out some places that might be good to go for odes next year. Luther Marsh and the rare property in Cambridge, if their respective owners don't mind. The Guelph Arboretum, as it's nice and close. A couple of the trails along the Speed River that I visited this year for work. Ideally I'd like to set up a regular visiting schedule so as to catch all of the different species that emerge through the year, but I know just how busy my evenings and weekends are during the summer, so that may actually be too ambitious a plan. Also, I'm hesitant to plan to go out wading the river by myself, it's not that I expect to fall in and drown but Murphy's Law implies that that would be the time for it to happen. And to really survey odes, sometimes you just need to get in the water.

Anyway. I have time to figure it out. Clearly I'll have to work a little harder to shift my gears back over to birds for the winter; getting stuck on insects isn't going to do me any good. The winter finch forecast didn't have a lot of northerners coming into Southern Ontario for the cold months, but there's always a few interesting things to see. I just have to get off my butt and go out to find them.

References

I'm finding this book to be the most helpful as I begin to sort out odonate ID.

(Considering that's a Wandering Glider on the cover, I wish I'd had it on hand when I was trying to ID that one a few weeks ago.)

Several key features make it stand out from the other books I have on hand: it includes both dragonflies and damselflies; it has photos and range maps for every species right with the description text for easy access; and perhaps most importantly it includes good descriptions of both the diagnostic features of each species AND the ways in which each species compares to their closest lookalikes. Having a list of comparison features, or even just comments like "no other species in x range will have y and z features" or "frustratingly similar to (these three other species) without examination of subgenital plates with a hand lens", has been absolutely invaluable.

The book at the top of the photo, "Dragonflies Through Binoculars" also has some good commentary on similar species, but the way it's set up is more cumbersome, it separates the text descriptions from the colour plates and range maps. I suppose if you wanted to flip through a set of photos really quickly to narrow down an ID, that setup would be useful, but it still leads to a lot of flipping back and forth and losing one's page. That books also does not include damselflies.

And finally, the little book at the bottom is the Stokes "Beginner's Guide To Dragonflies", which is exactly what is says on the tin. A good place to start and to look up really common stuff, but it obviously leaves out a lot of species and details.

iNaturalist records are going to be very helpful for practice, I think. I've already spent some time going through the odonates section, trying to confirm other people's IDs from the posted photos. At the very least, it'll get me familiar with the terminology and what features I need to be looking at for the various groups. And hopefully some of the more common or distinctive features will start sticking with me once I've seen them enough.

Road Trip

I find it amusing that I completely coincidentally mirrored many members of the Ontario Field Ornithologists this weekend. Apparently they had an event in Kingston, preceded by a field trip to Presqu'ile Provincial Park on Friday. I was in Kingston for the weekend on completely unrelated business, and took advantage of the trip east to stop at Presqu'ile on the way.

Of course, Friday morning was cool and windy and, eventually, rainy, so my birding at the park had very limited success. I thought I was going to get skunked completely out at Owen Point, but as I was working my way out onto the point itself to get a better view of the islands, a small flock came in to land on the beach nearby. Mostly Sanderlings, with a couple of Dunlin mixed in and four Black-bellied Plover (I really wanted them to be American Golden Plover, since I haven't seen those before, but my hopes were dashed when I saw the black wing-pits in flight).

Sanderling (left) and Dunlin (right)

Herring Gull, singing the song of its people

Owen Point, with bird-covered islands beyond

Sanderlings chasing the waves

Black-bellied Plover

I hit up the Marsh Boardwalk, too, because apparently I am a sucker for punishment. Similarly not much activity, but I did get good looks at a small group of Wood Ducks, and Wood Ducks are always worthwhile.

Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was gorgeous. I didn't get to look at any birds Saturday or Sunday, but the Kingston waterfront was spectacular nonetheless.

Finally!

The net has been broken in. :D

I'm not going to say that yelling madly as I chased it down helped, but it obviously didn't hurt. Frustration fueled by many misses clearly makes me quicker on the scoop.

And it was a new one for me, even! Unexpectedly difficult to ID, but that's mostly because all of my guide books are at home and I was working solely from google. "Dragonfly yellow and black" returns an unsurprisingly vast number of results. My coworker eventually got us down to the right genus, and from there it was an easy decision to name this one a Wandering Glider.

Creepy Crawlies

I suppose it was inevitable that as I started to look for insects, I found more and more spiders as well. Which doesn't always sit well with me. But if I can look at them from an objective naturalist's viewpoint (and keep them from crawling on me), I can appreciate that some of them are pretty darned cool looking. Like this Shamrock Orbweaver, also called a Pumpkin Spider because of its occasionally orange colouration.

I snapped the photo below on one of my job sites earlier this week, aiming for the Cabbage White. Upon uploading the photo later I noticed something down and a little to the right of the butterfly...

There's a big Banded Garden Spider (a close relative of the Big Sneaky Yellow Spiders from a few posts ago) just waiting. That Cabbage White doesn't know how close it came to being lunch that day. Here's some better shots of the same species from a site I was at today:

And because I like posting photos (and possibly because we all needed a palate cleanser from spiders), here's a Northern Crescent - differentiated from the very similar Pearl Crescent by the lack of white markings on the hindwing, and apparently also the large amount of orange on the tip of the antennae.

Why Do I Like This Hobby, Again?

Sometimes, leaving work a couple of hours early to go walking on a sunny Friday afternoon is the only choice you can make, especially when Saturday is supposed to be non-stop rainy.

At least, this is what I told myself yesterday as I set out to do just that. I decided that I needed to check out Luther Marsh, which was about an hour's drive away, since the eBird checklists coming out of there this past week were impressive. Lots of shorebirds, so, potentially frustrating, but I was feeling up to the challenge and my scope was getting dusty from lack of use.

I made the drive. I pulled off on the roadside, got out of the car, geared up. Started up the trail. In short order I realized several things:

1. The sunshine wasn't going to last. In fact, it got fairly cloudy fairly quickly, and I hadn't brought my regular glasses, only my sunglasses.
2. In fact, I hadn't brought a lot of things, I was fairly unprepared for this walk, because it was turning out to be a lot longer than I thought it was going to be from looking at the map.
3. The walk was turning out to be a lot longer than I had thought it would be, and I was carrying my scope. Which is not that heavy, objectively speaking, but certainly starts to feel that way after any kind of distance.
4. I was carrying my scope, which means I was unable to also carry my shiny new insect net, which was a real shame since the trail was literally buzzing with dragonflies.

So there I was, carrying that wretchedly heavy scope, thirsty and a little footsore, and frustrated over the lost opportunity to practice my dragonfly ID, when I finally got to the lookout I was aiming for. Finally, I thought to myself. Finally, I will see some shorebirds and justify this entire experience.

I looked. And while the marsh was, indeed, very pretty and full of egrets and cormorants and swans and such, there was not a single shorebird in sight. None of the mudflats or shallow weedy areas I was expecting to see. I had carried that wretched bloody scope all that way and given up on an excellent chance to catch some dragonflies, for not much of anything. And I simply did not have the time to walk further up the trail to find a better spot, not if I wanted to get all the way back to my car in any kind of decent time.

Crap.

Well, I thought to myself, I was already there, I'd come all that way with the wretched scope slung over my shoulder, I might as well take a scan around anyway. The egrets are pretty, I'll spend some time studying those. Mute Swans, cool, I can see the orange beaks on those with the scope. Pied-billed Grebes, okay, I thought that's what those were with that head shape. Osprey, sweet, harassing a Bald Ea--

Wait. Two Bald Eagles. Wait, no, four Bald Eagles, three adults and one subadult. Mostly standing there chilling but also flying in occasional short hops when the Osprey got a little too close. Those are some big freaking birds, yo. The adults were unmistakeable with that colour pattern,  even just through binoculars, but they were all distant enough that it was only with the scope that I got any kind of decent look at the subadult. So I guess it was worth lugging the wretched thing around after all.

Even my super zoom couldn't get a decent shot, at that range.

So, lesson learned, find a different parking location if I want to go back and scope the wetlands again, and definitely swap the scope for the net if I go on the southern part of the trail. I wish Luther Marsh was closer, I'd definitely make more of a habit of visiting if it were, because it is lovely and despite my gear misfires I still found some things to look at.

At least the Autumn Meadowhawks were willing to pose
 for me, even if all their cousins weren't.

My second-ever Common Buckeye, sunning on the trail.

And finally, Monarchs are always fun, especially when they
finally sit still and let you take their picture.

The Adventure Continues

Some highlights of my ongoing hunt for odonates:

Eastern Forktail

White-faced Meadowhawk

American Rubyspot

Dragonflies Are Jerks.

Why did I think it was a good idea to set my sights on bugs, again?

I've gone on a couple of outings now with the intention of finding some dragonflies. And I did indeed find some - zooming over fields at least 10 feet up, not even slowing down much less stopping so I could take a closer look. A couple of them were some kind of saddlebags, I saw that much from the big dark blotches on the hindwings. The rest, I honestly have no idea. Apparently up until now I've been playing on easy mode, where all of the dragonflies perch neatly and let you take their picture. I'm not sure who switched me up to advanced, but if you could please put me back down that would be great.

On a slightly different topic, some of you may have heard me tell the tale of the Big Sneaky Freaking Spiders. For those who haven't: one day I was out conducting my field work. Trudging along, taking notes, as one does. I stopped near a stream. I glanced up after several minutes of busy writing, to find myself staring at a Big Freaking Spider.  Then I looked slightly to the left, and saw another one. A bit further, two more. More to my right. Big, zig-zagging webs everywhere I looked. They were all around me. Oh god. How many had I walked through to get where I was standing. How many might be crawling on my back or my legs right that very second.

It was, shall we say, a rather unnerving experience.

Today I got to relive that experience.

I'd like to point out, since the photo is not entirely clear on the matter, that this thing is about an inch long without even taking the legs into account.

Ah, nature.

Bzzzz Bzzzz.

Expanding upon my adventures with dragonflies, I'm coming to realize that some bugs are pretty cool. I will never be a fan of spiders or crawly house pests, but look at this robber fly, for instance:

I thought it was a grasshopper at first glance, mostly because all of the other things flying around on the path were grasshoppers and this was about the same size, but it didn't flash the yellow and black grasshopper wings when it flew so that caught my attention. I love the spiky legs.

On a different site, I found this Primrose Moth:

Very aptly named, since it's sitting on a primrose flower. When I was looking up the ID, the very first webpage I visited started out by saying that these moths are most often found with their heads completely buried in the center of a flower, so I guess that pose is a characteristic behaviour. Nice when things behave exactly as they're supposed to!

We Have The Technology

You may now notice a convenient little widget to the right advertising my iNaturalist observations. So if you're interested in a real-time record of what I'm seeing as I stomp around southern Ontario, there you go.

iNaturalist could be really, really addictive.

Beyond Pelee

My other spring birding adventure this year was a 4-day trip to southern Pennsylvania.

...well, I say 4 days - two of those were pretty much taken up entirely by driving. But still. It was organized by the Guelph Arboretum, it was affordable, and apparently I was in the mood to take a chance on spending an extended amount of time with strangers in a foreign country.

The purpose of the trip, on paper, was to see the 17-year cicada emergence in West Virginia, and see it we did.

We were there just at the beginning of the emergence, so while they were loud, they weren't holy crap ow my ears loud. There are apparently three different species that are part of the emergence, all synced up on the 17-year cycle, all emerging at once to overwhelm the predators and therefore ensure some survival to reproduce. Nature is fascinating.

And because you can't get 15 outdoor enthusiasts together without looking at All The Things, we also went hunting for snakes and salamanders, hung cloths up for moths at night, found bats under the eaves of our cabin, and did some solid birding at some very lovely parks. I hit nearly all of my target species for the trip, even if most of them were only heard and not seen (because birds are jerks like that, sometimes): Cerulean Warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, Carolina Chickadee, Hooded Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, and Louisiana Waterthrush.

Good scenery. Good times. I'm enjoying this whole 'long weekend' approach to vacationing.

Reviews, and photos.

My newfound interest in dragonflies led me to sorting through all of my old photos last night, so I could confirm IDs and submit the observations to iNaturalist. This was my first attempt at using iNaturalist after hearing about it at this year's Credit River BioBlitz, and I think it could be... addictive, actually. Useful, and addictive.

eBird is still the superior app/program for birds, no question, because it allows you to tally observations over a walking route and doesn't require photos for ID confirmation (half the time you ID birds by sound, so that really doesn't work). But for things like dragonflies - or reptiles, or plants, or butterflies - which lend themselves better to single-point observations and photography, I think it'll work very well. I have definitely been wanting an app to track my observations of things other than birds. And iNaturalist comes with a whole host of other participants who can confirm or refine my ID on things I'm not sure of. They've already come up with IDs on two odonates that I didn't have before, so I'm definitely inclined to sing its praises right now.

And hey, the data is also shared freely with people running atlases or research into species ranges or abundance or whatnot. So not only do I get to indulge my obsession with cataloguing the natural world, someone out there gets to benefit from it.

But back to dragonflies. And damselflies, by extension. Odonates in general. Here, have a selection of the photos I dug up last night:

A female Twelve-spotted Skimmer. Very similar to the female Common Whitetail (it nearly fooled me at first glance), but with a solid yellow stripe along the side of the abdomen instead of discrete spots. The wing pattern on the two is nearly identical, though.

American Rubyspot. The bright red spot at the base of the wings is unmistakable.

This is one of the ones that iNaturalist solved for me. I knew it was a female meadowhawk, but there are multiple meadowhawk species and for the most part it's only the males you can tell apart easily (for a given value of "easy"). But there is one species, Autumn Meadowhawk, which is also sometimes called Yellow-legged Meadowhawk. And this photo very conveniently and clearly shows my lady here having yellow legs.

Male Band-winged Meadowhawk. A lot of the male meadowhawks are that really lovely red colour. And I like the species that have patterns or colours on the wings, rather than the body; it's easier to see from a distance and usually quite diagnostic.

Case in point, this Blue Dasher has a bit of amber colouring on the hindwing, which helped with the ID. I mean, it wasn't a hard one otherwise, what with the plain blue tail, stripes on the side of the thorax, white face, and green eyes (an odd combination of features). But all defining characteristics are good characteristics.

Another iNaturalist winner: Powdered Dancer. I had tentatively ID'd this one as a Powdered previously,  based on the coloration, but wasn't confident... unless it's something like an Ebony Jewelwing, which is impossible to misidentify even for a raw beginner, I tend to second-guess myself a lot with damselflies.

Eastern Pondhawk - a young male still transitioning from green to blue. This species is especially fun because while the mature males are a powdery pale blue, the females stay bright green, so unless you see them flying together during mating it's easy to think they're completely different species. And then you get the juvie males that are halfway between, just to further confuse the issue.

Speaking of Ebony Jewelwings... black wings and a bright metallic green body. Still one of the prettiest bugs I've ever seen.

Halloween Pennant, fairly easy to spot from the vaguely amber-coloured wings with dark bands. On the similar Calico Pennant, which I saw the other day but didn't get a pic of, the wing markings look more like spots.

Nope, not an Ebony Jewelwing that grew its wings wrong... it's the closely-related River Jewelwing.  The only other damselfly I feel confident IDing on sight, coincidence or conspiracy?

Finally, a female Widow Skimmer. That black and yellow pattern on the abdomen is diagnostic, as are the black marks on the wings. The male has a similar wing pattern with an added blotch of white beside the black, and lacks the yellow-and-black abdomen.

And now I want to get out there and find more.

Bzzzz.

Yesterday I took myself out to a butterfly census and spent the day rediscovering that some bugs are pretty darned cool. Unsurprisingly, I have been left with a burning urge to learn my dragonflies.

Dragonflies, damselflies, and butterflies are very charismatic bugs, and dragonflies in particular have really awesome names. Ebony Boghaunter, seriously. Cobra Clubtail. Eastern Pondhawk. Dragonhunter. How could you not want to know what these things look like.

Yes, we were technically looking for butterflies, but it's inevitable when you get together a group of people who are inclined towards the outdoors that you end up looking at anything and everything within reach. We saw Calico Pennants, Common Whitetails, some really huge ones that I didn't ID because I didn't have my binoculars, and these guys:

(Blue Dasher)

The group who did the butterfly census is running a bioblitz on their property in a few weeks, so hopefully I'll get another crack at the odonates in the area. From what I understand, the person who previously acted as their dragonfly expert moved away, so there may be a vacancy to fill....

There and Gone

There's a field just outside of Guelph that used to be flooded every spring, tufts of grass sticking up through a vast sheet of water. It was filled with ducks every year, even a few shorebirds sometimes. I know I saw American Black Duck, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, and Northern Shoveler amongst the hundreds of Mallards; others could no doubt add to that tally.

The entire area has been bulldozed now; going to be part of a shopping plaza when they finish. Nothing but bare, dry dirt and a little puddle where they're probably going to put a stormwater pond. What a waste.

Not 'Regret', Per Se....

And now, of course, I already want to go back to Pelee and hunt for all the things I missed yesterday. I did my best yesterday not to 'chase' birds that other people had seen (because inevitably I wouldn't find them, and end up frustrated) but rather just enjoy the day and appreciate what I saw. And that strategy worked very well for me at the time.

But now, of course, I'm looking at other people's records and seeing Hooded Warbler, Philadelphia Vireo, Red-headed Woodpecker, Mourning Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Eastern Bluebird... and I would dearly love to give it another shot. Fifty-odd species is really not that fantastic a tally for that park during migration, I'm sure there's birds I walked right past because I was too focused on something else.

Definitely going for two days, next time.

A Trip Long Overdue

So I finally made it to Point Pelee National Park during migration. I had originally planned to go on Saturday, but Saturday was cold and rainy so I decided to take Monday off instead. Given how busy it still was on a weekday, the weather was probably a blessing in disguise; I can't imagine what kind of crowd would have been there on the weekend.

Overall: A++, would bird again. I think I'd go for two days next time, though, give me a chance to revisit the best trails, get an earlier start (with opportunity for napping in the afternoon), and maybe hit up Hillman Marsh as well.

My day's highlights included: 5 new lifer species (for a grand total of 250), a nest of fluffy owl chicks, a near-deafening dawn chorus, and a lot of really good looks at really pretty birds. A full tally follows, with my new ones bolded.





Canada Goose
Blue-winged Teal
Wild Turkey
Double-crested Cormorant
Turkey Vulture
American Coot
Short-billed Dowitcher
Ring-billed Gull
Black Tern
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-pewee
Eastern Kingbird
Yellow-throated Vireo
Blue-headed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Marsh Wren
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Worm-eating Warbler
Prothonotary Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Cape May Warbler
Northern Parula
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch