This year, for the first time since pre-pandemic, I was able to take part in the Hamilton Ode Count. Fortuitously, I ended up being assigned to the location I've been trying to get to for a few years now, in order to see (some of) the very species that I ended up seeing.
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| Amber-winged Spreadwing (Lestes eurinus) |
I didn't realize what I had on this one until later when I was sorting my photos. I knew it was a spreadwing, but I wasn't able to net one so I thought I'd be hooped without a close-up of the cerci to ID from. But those wings are unmistakable, and in retrospect I do remember thinking that it was just big for a spreadwing, way too big to be a Slender Spreadwing even though it did seem proportionally thinner through the abdomen than others in that group.
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| Dusky Dancer (Argia translata) |
Sadly did not photograph all that well, but there are small rings of bright blue on the abdomen that serve to ID it as Dusky along with the overall dark colouration. Very cool species.
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| Rainbow Bluet (Enallagma antennatum) |
A female, lovely lime-green overall with yellow-orange face and legs, and blueish post-ocular spots. Thought it was a female forktail at first, since it was about the right size and I'd seen many forktails flying around already that day, but something just didn't seem right about it, so I'm glad I followed my instincts and snagged it for a closer look.
Odes are just great, you guys. I still have vague thoughts at trying to start an actual ode survey for my home county to feed into a local rarity ranking system, but that is such a huge thing to consider that I'm still too intimidated.
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