Fucking bluets.
May. 25th, 2019 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBluets are a genus-ish group of odonates. They're tiny and blue and they all look pretty much alike through my damn bifocals. I have mentioned previously that I need to do better at bluets and so I am trying to do better at bluets. But they're tiny and blue and they all look pretty much alike, hence my frustration.
But despite the frustrations of Bluet Identification, there was some progress on other fronts.
1. Every prince baskettail on the planet must have eclosed last night. I found like twenty exuvia for this species today. I also got a nice pic of a teneral prince baskettail.
2. I added some species to the list of "confirmed out and about", including Common Whitetail
and Blue Dasher (more blue when seen from above, not so blue on the side view)
and Eastern Forktail, which has been out for a week or so but which I had not yet secured a photo voucher to represent the species.
I saw but couldn't get pictures of calico pennant and spangled skimmer.
and I FINALLY caught a common green darner. Finally. (They're big and fast. I have heretofore been unsuccessful at catching them but without a voucher photograph, I can't claim them.)
I took A LOT of pictures of him. (It's a him. Females have reddish tails, not blue tails.)
He is so big. And green. Very handsome, indeed.
Common green darner, I can identify from a distance of fifty feet. Bluets, though, not so much.
So, this is a bluet. I think it's an azure bluet but I'm not 100% on that. It's a bluet that COULD be an azure bluet. Maybe.
This is a different bluet.
I do not know what bluet this is, but it's less-blue than the azure bluet. Bluets are tiny and hard to photograph. Their field marks are teensy. It is challenging. I will have to try harder.
But despite the frustrations of Bluet Identification, there was some progress on other fronts.
1. Every prince baskettail on the planet must have eclosed last night. I found like twenty exuvia for this species today. I also got a nice pic of a teneral prince baskettail.
2. I added some species to the list of "confirmed out and about", including Common Whitetail
and Blue Dasher (more blue when seen from above, not so blue on the side view)
and Eastern Forktail, which has been out for a week or so but which I had not yet secured a photo voucher to represent the species.
I saw but couldn't get pictures of calico pennant and spangled skimmer.
and I FINALLY caught a common green darner. Finally. (They're big and fast. I have heretofore been unsuccessful at catching them but without a voucher photograph, I can't claim them.)
I took A LOT of pictures of him. (It's a him. Females have reddish tails, not blue tails.)
He is so big. And green. Very handsome, indeed.
Common green darner, I can identify from a distance of fifty feet. Bluets, though, not so much.
So, this is a bluet. I think it's an azure bluet but I'm not 100% on that. It's a bluet that COULD be an azure bluet. Maybe.
This is a different bluet.
I do not know what bluet this is, but it's less-blue than the azure bluet. Bluets are tiny and hard to photograph. Their field marks are teensy. It is challenging. I will have to try harder.
