One a day, plus iron

More Odes We Have and Where To Find Them

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 16:28:58 GMT

Second in a series of two, this is the NON-POND odonates. These are the dragonflies and damselflies that live in non-pond surroundings. They like creeks or swampy bits or whatever, just non-pond. If you want to see these guys, you are going to have to go where they live.

( Even more pictures of bugs! )

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Odes we have and where to find them.

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 02:40:32 GMT

It's been a while since I did an updated list of the odes found in my stomping grounds. Digital cameras are a lot better now and I have better pictures and more sorts of odes. It is time for a new and better list, one that might also reasonably serve as a field guide if anyone wanted that sort of thing. (Nobody does.)

( Here follows about a million pictures of bugs. I am not kidding. )

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Odes. New camera is da bomb.

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:56:45 GMT

So I finally (in this era of covid, still) got a new camera to replace the canon powershot that was having lens opening issues. Hooray! I went out over the weekend to play odes with said camera.

( It is da bomb. )

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Inviting an internet friend over to play your strange hobby

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 20:13:48 GMT

(Not about sex stuff, please get mind out of gutter and into swamp.)

I invited an internet friend over to play odes. From a facebook group, so this is a person I don't actually know. But he came and brought his girlfriend along. We went and played odes.

( It started out overcast and cool... )

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Grey Petaltails, habitat for young'uns

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 01:12:45 GMT

I saw a Grey Petaltail eclosing over the weekend down by my swamp. (Seriously, it's my swamp. It's about three or four acres and it's on private property and I own the private property. Trust me when I say it's my swamp.) I took what shitty pictures I could with my phone (my real camera died, new one is en route from Amazon but cool stuff doesn't wait for the new camera to arrive, so... yeah) and posted them to the "odonate larvae and exuvia" facebook group. (Yes, that's a real facebook group. There are facebook groups for everything, including people who want to look at juvenile odes in their not-so-pretty aquatic forms.)

( Please, tell me more! This is fascinating, really. )

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Ego Video Librum Tachopteryx thoreyi, or Gray Petaltails, A Spotter's Guide

Sun, 07 Jun 2020 15:23:14 GMT

The Gray Petaltail is a fairly beefy and impressive-looking ode that hangs out in swamps. Seriously, that's where it lives. People who like odes are somewhat enthused about gray petaltails because they live in swamps and thus are not super-easy to see. (I am not sure why things that are difficult to see are... more fun or whatever, but that's ode enthusiasts for you.) I myself was enthused about Gray Petaltails because I never saw them. I mean, I have a perfectly good swamp nearby and I have lived here almost my entire life and heretofore I had not been seeing a shit-ton of Gray Petaltails. Like two, ever, before this spring, both in flight and the first one because she ran into me. Now, obvs, I am enthused because I am going to tell YOU how to do better at seeing Gray Petaltails, if that is the sort of thing you might like to be doing. One never knows.

( Learning to see, we are everyday learning to see... )

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It's Odes Season Again!!

Sun, 24 May 2020 10:40:22 GMT

We've had a wet and cool spring, somewhat less than exciting on the odes front. But today, with a seventy-plus day and sun intermittently... it is odes season once again. So exciting!

( The odonatacentral website has changed... )

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A post of limited interest. Information wants to be free, though.

Tue, 05 May 2020 02:20:10 GMT

Okay, so in reviewing Tennessen on the Cordulegasters, he’s all “I believe that there are two subgroups of Cordulegaster, To Wit: Cordulegaster proper and Zoraena.” (Most odes people just lump these all in with Cordulegaster but Tennessen says LOL NOE, THEY ARE WAY DIFFERENT ON THE NYMPH SCALE and this difference is different enough to argue for Zoraena.)

( Srsly it's gonna go on in this vein, you might want to quit now. )

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If a tree falls in the forest...

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 01:56:04 GMT

We're back at the Boots on the Ground problem for science. I've been on this before that species are not being observed and that our distribution and prevalence maps for stuff kind of suck. (No harm no foul to scientists out there doing the good work -- they can't be everywhere doing everything and there simply are not enough of them to cover the world in an odonate-centric sort of way.) And places like iNaturalist and odonatacentral.org try pretty hard to improve the record and produce up-to-date distribution maps. iNaturalist is citizen-verified, OC is verified by selected experts but both sites require a voucher specimen (typically a photograph) to prove that you saw what you say you saw.

I guess it's possible that some yahoo might submit photographs that aren't really stuff they actually saw but it takes a special kind of stupid to want to pretend to find odonates. I don't think people are actually doing that.

( Here's a cut before I go on endlessly about odes )

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Still playing odes. Sorry for the repetitive nature of these posts, but...

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 02:35:52 GMT

I am not really sorry. It's odes season and I am very enthused. I know that it's not everyone's cup of tea to hear about odes all the damn time.

Non-odes update: The guinea hens have been moved to the big chicken coop with the Marans.

Non-odes update: Roses are blooming, but not Chuck just yet.

Non-odes update:

This is a Roundleaf Sundew, a carnivorous plant found in the swampy bits up at the end of Kutz's creek that used to be a beaverpond and now contain an assortment of Interesting Odes.

( Interesting Odes below the cut... )

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Current list of odes for my area, observed by me

Tue, 28 May 2019 14:32:47 GMT

I keep going back and updating my list of ever-observed odes and that's tedious. It just is. And I'm thinking about what might be more useful than Just A List. I mean, an ever-observed-even-once list is more helpful than no list at all.

( But is that the only list that matters? )

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You didn't play horse at all this weekend, did you?

Mon, 27 May 2019 20:52:22 GMT

No, no I did not. I visited the horse and fed the horse but there was no playing of horse. Because dragonfly season is very exciting.

( How exciting was it? )

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Fucking bluets.

Sat, 25 May 2019 19:17:29 GMT

Bluets 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.

( This post does not contain any pictures of bluets actually fucking. I had opportunities to take that picture today and I did not. )

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Dragonflies again.

Sat, 25 May 2019 01:58:44 GMT

I skipped out of work half an hour early to play dragonfly a bit. How'd that go?

( Yes, of COURSE there are pictures. )

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There are a lot of watersnakes in the lake.

Sun, 19 May 2019 20:57:19 GMT

Today, I saw a boatload of watersnakes. They're not poisonous or anything but they are kind of nasty and will bite at you if they feel cornered. Mostly they just startle me. But I saw, like, all of them today. Ugh. Not a huge fan of the startle.

( This post looks like it's not going to be about dragonflies. )

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Chasin' odes! (There are pictures!!)

Sat, 18 May 2019 16:07:26 GMT

Okay, so it wasn't raining this morning but it also wasn't bright and sunny. It was a bit chilly and overcast, which is fine because that means anything eclosing is going to be taking its time about it.

( You know you want to see the pix. )

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After work, I played odonata and took a spin on Bird

Sat, 18 May 2019 01:21:07 GMT

Odonata are more in need of warm sunshine than my endothermic pony, so I did odonata first. Couple of things out and about.

( We are into the image-heavy season, here. )

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Dragonfly season is underway.

Fri, 17 May 2019 17:10:15 GMT

If you thought this was an all-horse-all-the-time blog, you thought wrong. It is getting to be dragonfly season. I spotted a dragonfly in the yard last weekend while mowing the lawn and submitted pix of same to OC. OC agrees with me that it's an E. cynosura (common baskettail) so that's one more for my official list of confirmed species in the valley.

( I need to take my form for field notes home with me this weekend )

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Beatty Collection, Frost Entomological Museum

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:03:13 GMT

Yep, gonna talk about odes again. Sorry, folks. Area of enthusiasm. You know how it is.

( It is the middle of winter, can't you at least restrict this to summer? )

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Odonata found here, based on the PNHP for Fulton County

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 01:05:27 GMT

I was (a little light reading) checking out the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Project for Fulton County. It (and all the other reports for the other counties in PA) can be found here if you want to read several hundred pages of Stuff In Your County (or mine). I'm located at the far end of the Sideling Hill Creek (N) watershed (page 35 of 273, the dark forest green color in the upper left hand side of the graphic).

( So much about dragonflies. That's what I'm here for really. )

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Sat, 29 Dec 2018 23:45:05 GMT

Took a walk today. Late December has its moments...

( pictures behind the cut )

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Thu, 27 Dec 2018 19:07:49 GMT

NEARBY Odonata-friendly Places that are under-surveyed
( Read more... )

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Thu, 27 Dec 2018 12:50:50 GMT

Sheesh, I hit enter and it posted. Oops. More about dragonflies, folks, in a nerd science sort of way.

( no, really, that's what the post is about. )

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Wed, 26 Dec 2018 23:44:19 GMT

Dragonflies that live in my area, illustrated by scientific name and regular name and (ta-dah!) photograph. This is not ALL of them, just it’s the ones that I have caught and photographed and positively identified. We probably have more kinds of bluets than are shown. We definitely have Common Green Darners even though I can’t catch the damn things. I’m pretty sure we have Brown Spiketails. We have a baskettail I do not know and I’m not certain we have only one Sympetrum species. More research is needed but this is what I have so far.

( really image-heavy post under the cut. not kidding. )

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Wed, 26 Dec 2018 23:15:55 GMT

According to the nice people from odonatacentral.org, the species I should find in Fulton County that I have not yet found are as follows:

( Read more? )

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