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.