The 2024 season for dragonflies and damselflies seems to be starting later and slower than 2023. Locally, we have three damselflies in the Ischnura genus:
posita
prognata
hastata

In 2023 I started seeing all three in significant numbers in February. This year, it wasn't until mid-March that I started seeing more than just a few individuals. I should note however that the I. hastata really seems to prefer warmer weather and only showed up last year and this year as a few individuals here and there early on. Significant numbers didn't show up until mid to late April.

In 2023, I also was seeing Arigomphus pallidus (Gray-green Clubtail) by this point in March (late midpoint) but so far, this year I haven't seen any yet. That's not to say they aren't there--I just haven't spotted them yet.

In 2023, the Common Baskettails, Epitheca cynosura, hung out in a small sunny clearing in our woods almost exclusively. This year (2024) the population seems to have exploded and while there are a few individuals in the same small clearing, I've found most of them in an agricultural field adjacent to the swamp. But they are basically everywhere that is sunny at this moment (18th of March, 2024) in pretty large numbers. It is strange to me how they have "changed locations". The agricultural field where they are now is where I was typically finding the Gray-green Clubtails last year so maybe the clubtails are here but someplace unexpected.

One thing that is puzzling me (well really, a lot of things puzzle me, but...) is location. When I read about the Common Baskettail, the literature says to look at ponds and lakes with open or wooded margins. Well. In the two years that I've been observing them on our property, they are always in drier, sunny areas such as clearings in our woods and agricultural fields where there is no water. In fact, I've only seen them near any water twice (two individuals, which I believe were females ovipositing).

The same confusion exists for me with Furtive Forktails, Ischnura prognata. Everything I've read says to look for them in shady areas along woodland creeks/streams, etc. Again, since I've been observing them, I've never found them in a shady area. Yes, they are in the woods, but I can only find them in those areas that have knee-high vegetation and where the sun has broken through the canopy so there is a small area of sunshine. They may or may not be anywhere near water. In many cases, they are a good meter and often more away from the streams running through the swamp here. Shade? No. Dappled sunlight/sunny areas in the woods? Yes.

Note: Since the vegetation the Furtive Forktails prefer also likes the sunshine, it may be more a case of the plants growing in the sun and subsequently drawing the Furtive Forktails into sunny areas as a consequence. However, I will say that I often see them perched on a stem or thin branch (again at knee-height) and apparently basking in the sun. If that area grows shady, they will follow the sun to a new location and perch/bask there. So... They seem to me to like the sun. Or I don't understand what I am seeing.

I find it confusing, and perhaps indicative of my lack of understanding regarding the location and behavior information contained within the books I have. The truth is, I feel kind of stupid but all I can do is document what I'm seeing and hope I'll develop a better understanding of our natural world.

This post is half funny and half serious. I make a lot of mistakes and made one recently that made me wince in retrospect. Almost all of my mistakes follow the same general pattern of behavior and thought processes.

Background: I was looking for late-season dragonflies and damselflies and was thrilled to find some at a pond on some nearby gamelands. While I was there, I thought I'd seen: Carolina Spreadwings - Lestes vidua ; Southern Spreadwings - Lestes australis; Citrine Forktails - Ischnura posita; Common Green Darners - Anax junius ; and Little Blue Dragonlets - Erythrodiplax minuscula.

So, I took photos and upload a sampling, figuring that I didn't need more than 3 or 4 observations per species.
While uploading the photos and filling out the observation information, I always let the "Computer Vision AI" (CV) come up with a suggestion in case I've had a temporary (hopefully temporary) bout of insanity and didn't see what I thought I saw.

All was going smoothly and I was ready to identify my observation as a Carolina Spreadwing until...
CV suggested a Swamp Spreadwing - Lestes vigilax
My mental processes skidded and slid sideways.
A what?
I looked more closely at the photo.
Bright blue eyes, thorax metallic green with reddish-brown stripes...
Okay, wait...
It has blue eyes...bright blue eyes... I must be wrong about it being a Carolina Spreadwing. They have dark blue or even dark purple eyes on top with blue below. This spreadwing has really bright blue--not dark at all--eyes...So, yeah. I must be wrong.
Southern Spreadwings have blue eyes...but they also have pale greenish blue shoulder stripes, not reddish-brown. So I don't think it's that...
Could the Computer Vision AI be right?
I've seen Swamp Spreadwings at this pond during the summer.
But it's really late in the season for them.
On the other hand, our basil is still green in the garden, so there have been no frosts here. Maybe it's just a late season Swamp Spreadwing, even though they are kind of uncommon at this specific pond which is really open and sunny. But I have seen them there before. During the summer...
What do I know after all?
Anything is possible. Kind of.
And I really don't know that much about damselflies. Or dragonflies for that matter. I've got to be wrong. Heck, I have no idea what it is now. I'm totally confused.
I read up on Swamp Spreadwings again in my dragonfly book. Their eyes are dark blue-green with pale blue highlights over yellow-green.
That doesn't sound right for my damselfly either.
Those blue eyes are really bothering me.
So I throw up my hands and select the CV-suggested species.

And I'm wrong. Again.
Sigh.
I just hope all the folks who correct my identifications aren't getting tired and frustred with me. Or think I'm a complete idiot--incomplete idiot--whatever.
It's so easy to make mistakes. I can talk myself into almost anything for an ID, but in this case, I should have stuck with my original thought that it was a Carolina Spreadwing.

Now...on to less silly things...
Late Season Odonata
Seems that once the temperatures reach 60 degrees F, there might be a few species of Odonata left to find especially along the coast where it is more temperate. I was actually really surprised to see both the Carolina and Southern Spreadwings, Citrine Forktails, Little Blue Dragonlets, and Common Green Darner at the gameland pond. In fact, I wasn't expecting to see anything like that and had left my boots back at the car and had to trudge back to put them on so I could get some photos. Here it is, the first week of December and there are still Odonata to be found!

Checking the NC Odonate Website yielded the information that the Carolina Spreadwing is virtually year-around at coastal areas like that gameland pond. The other species I saw can be found until at least mid-December on warm sunny days.

It's too bad that the water on our property is mostly in the form of streams that have fish since the Carolina and Southern Spreadwings don't seem to like those streams. I've never found any at those streams. The few I've found have been around small temporary ponds/puddles without fish, although I have found both Swamp Spreadwings and Elegant Spreadwings along the streams at the edge of and within the wooded swamp areas. I also seem to be able to find Furtive Forktails, Ischnura prognata, almost all year around in the swamp as long as the weather is above 60F and sunny.

That's another weird thing that I wanted to note.
In most of the literature I've read, folks specify that Furtive Forktails are in shady, wooded areas. The wooded part is true, but I've almost never (or actually--never) found them in a shady area. I always find them in the low-growing vegetation such as Lizard's Tail that grows in areas near the streams where the sunlight breaks through the canopy. Those areas are mostly created by falling trees/storm damage. So while they are technically in the woods/swamp, the area where the Furtives lurk is actually quite sunny.

So I don't know what to make of that.

It's interesting to me to compare this year (2023) to last year (2022) because they differed widely in the numbers and types of Odonata I observed.

2022
In 2022, we had drought conditions all summer, continuing the 2021 trend. In the swamp, most of the streams had dried up although there were a few of the deeper pools that retained water. There were very few fish and crayfish--so few in fact that birds such as Barred Owls and Yellow-crowned Nightherons were either far fewer in number (the Barred Owls) or simply went elsewhere (the Yellow-crowned Nightherons and other wading birds). There were no successful Yellow-crowned Nightheron nests such as there had been in previous years.

However, the Odonata population was huge.
We had large numbers of skimmers everywhere, particularly the Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans); Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta); Bar-winged Skimmer (Libellula axilena); Painted Skimmer (Libellula semifasciata); Golden-winged Skimmer (Libellula auripennis); and Needham's Skimmer (Libellula needhami). You literally could not walk anywhere without seeing most of these skimmers.

In addition, of course, were the Blue Dashers (Pachydiplax longipennis), Eastern Pondhawks (Erythemis simplicicollis), and Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia). Those were ubiquitous.

In the grass everywhere were Fragile Forktails (Ischnura posita) and Citrine Forktails (Ischnura hastata). In the shadier areas of the swamp along the streams (even though they were mostly dried up and simply mud) were dozens of Furtive Forktails (Ischnura prognata).

There were also spreadwings and other damselflies.

I believe a number of factors were involved, including:

• They were concentrated in areas where there was still water or attracted to our area because we did have a few pools remaining of water.
• Other species such as fish and young crayfish were few and far between, thereby reducing the number of predators of Odonata nymphs.

2023
In 2023, we started out in drought conditions but by mid-summer, we started to get more rain which filled the streams in the swamp as well as filling ephemeral pools. Because of the abundance of water, I naively expected to see more dragonflies and damselflies. Oddly enough, the opposite is mostly true, although I am seeing an abundance of some species which were hard to find in 2022.

I'm not seeing nearly as many skimmers. In 2022, if I went out to the streams (remaining pools, really) in sunny locations, there would be skimmers perched on the tops of cattails and other tall marsh plants everywhere. In some cases, there would be a skimmer perched on the tip of almost every plant between the first and second streams.

In 2023, when I went out in the afternoon to the same location, there were almost no skimmers perched on the tips of the plants.

However, in the ephemeral pools, there are dozens of Common Green Darners (Anax junius). We had a few in 2022, but nothing like the numbers everywhere this year. In the evening, I even see Common Green Darners swooping out over the farm fields in front of the house while last year, it would be members of the Libellula genus swooping around the fields in the afternoon/evening. It was strange to see the difference. I never thought I'd say this because I saw so many last year, but I miss all the Great Blue Skimmers & Needham's Skimmers that used to be everywhere. They are still here but much harder to find.

Of course, there are some things that haven't changed. The Eastern Pondhawks, Blue Dashers, and Common Whitetails are still ubiquitous.

But in the swamp, where there is now plenty of water in the streams and a growing population of both fish and crayfish, there are few Furtive Forktails to be found. Last year, I couldn't walk along a stream without seeing at least a dozen of them.

However, this year, we have more spreadwings, including Southern Spreadwings (Lestes australis), which were much harder to find and frankly, I didn't find any on our property last year. But I find them quite frequently this year.

So I'm wondering if drought conditions actually create more opportunities for Odonata to exploit whatever water still remains, due to the lower incidence of other species which might predate the nymphs or even adults. (I'm thinking of fish, amphibians, and crayfish.) The lack of fish, amphibians, and crayfish also impacts the number of wading birds (and even owls since they eat crayfish here). Perhaps the lack of waders is also beneficial to larger Odonata, such as members of the Libellula genus.

Conclusion: It will be interesting to see what conditions we have next year (2024) and how that affects the number and variety of Odonata species in Bladen County.

Sadly, on some of the sites I use regularly for data on dragonflies and damselflies, there is no weather-related information or even time-of-day information. So I've been stumbling around, trying to figure out when the best times are to observe these creatures.

I have been fortunate several times to find dragonflies at mid-morning, e.g. 9-10:30AM. I've been less fortunate in finding them from around 11:00AM until about 2:00PM particularly on very warm summer days.

In the afternoon, from around 2:00PM until around 3:30 or 4PM, I often see both dragonflies and damselflies. After about 4PM, things seem to settle down again and numbers gradually lessen. I have not been successful in observing/discovering evening-flying dragonflies or damselflies but I know they exist and will keep trying for those.

In late August, around 4PM, it was particularly easy to see the Common Green Darner (Anax junius) in pairs, ovipositing in ephemeral puddles and ponds after we'd had a good amount of rain in previous days. One day around 4PM in early September, I saw 4 pairs of Anax junius (each pair in tandem) ovipositing within 16 cm of each other in the same puddle! As a side note, I wonder how successful this ultimately will be since the puddles really are ephemeral and only present for a few days after a heavy rainfall. We do get more rain in the autumn months, but not enough to keep those puddles filled with water until next summer.

Weather: I've discovered that if there is a "window" of sunny weather between rain showers, that is a particularly good time to go out. When I was at the Cedar Island boat ramp pond, it rained heavily and then quit for an hour. The sun came out and there were a lot of both dragonflies and damselflies flying in the sunshine. It rained again about an hour later and both species disappeared (and so did I). The next day was sunny all day and much less productive than it had been during that window between showers.

Cloudy days aren't much good for observing either, although Ischnura prognata don't seem to care if it's overcast since they are in the shadowy forested swamp anyway.

Spring and the first half of the summer are the best months for damselflies here in NC. After that, they seem to be much less frequently seen with the exceptions of the Ishnura genus (Ischnura hastata becomes much more prevalent in late summer than in early summer - at least here in NC) and onsies-twosies here and there of other species. It seems like once the skimmers (Libellula) become numerous in late July, the damselflies start to dwindle/hide more.

I've never tried to run a lightsheet before so I've been experimenting with it to attract moths for Moth Week. Before this week, I set up sheets in various locations with UV lights to experiment and see what worked and what didn't. Honestly, I had little to no success in attracting moths although I sure got the mosquitos, beetles, and gnats. The UV lights just didn't seem to attract much and actually, a little worklight that I was using as a flashlight worked better than the UV lights. Go figure.

Last night, I set up a shower curtain liner (plastic but textured) between two beech trees in our yard, about 10 yards away from woods consisting of mixed hardwoods. In front of that, I placed a stand to support two types of UV lights, a flashlight/worklight, and next to it, I placed a grow light that had it's own tripod. The grow light had a USB cable for power so I hooked that up to a portable generator/battery unit. I tried this setup before with minimal (very minimal) success, but the grow light addition did seem to draw more than just beetles.

In desperation, I also took a bottle of very cheap, very sweet local wine (loathsome stuff but I apologize to anyone who likes the stuff and apparently some do because it is very popular locally) and simmered it with a bunch of sugar in it. Then I soaked some rags in the mixture and hung them up next to the sheet at about 9PM. It appears that the moths disagree with me: as soon as I hung up the rags, moths started coming in. Who knew? Sure, they weren't the big gaudy ones, but at least there were a few moths which beat my previous attempts using just the lights.

Most of the moths appeared between 9:30PM and 11:30PM. When I checked sporadically after midnight, basically the same moths were still slurping from the rags and hanging out on the sheet in front of the grow lights. The numbers declined until around 2:30AM when I stopped for the night. Maybe I should have continued until later--I will have to try that in future nights. The plan is to set up every other night during moth week.

On Monday, I'm going to try a different location, perhaps on the lawn next to our pond. I've found Luna Moth wings there (the moth's body most likely eaten by bats) so maybe I'll find some other species in that location. While I've tried running a lightsheet in the swamp along a stream without any success, I may try that location again later in the week, although it is a longer walk (which means I'll probably hang out down there to avoid continually walking back and forth for 1/3 mile to get there). Prestaging a chair and perhaps a shelter of some kind to escape from the insects would make it a lot more convenient so I'll have to see what I can do.

I also plan on using a regular microfiber sheet in other locations so I can leave the shower liner where it is for now. Today, I'm going to fold down each corner of the sheet about an inch and sew it in place so I have little tunnels through which to run rope (or more likely, flagging) to hang the sheet. That will make it a lot easier to string it up securely. While clothespins work, if there is any breeze they have a tendency to work loose so I think having corner pockets through which I can run the string/rope/flagging will work out better. It's all experimentation at this point.

Oh, and so far, the "best" moth I've attracted has been the Hieroglyphic Moth, Diphthera festiva. I'd never seen one before last night and in point of fact, never knew they existed before last night, so that was a fun observation. Since I'm completely new to "mothing" most of the moths are new to me, but that one was so striking that it really caught my attention. I was also intrigued by one of the Armyworm moths--those moths were the ones that were super attracted to the wine/sugar dipped rags and in fact, I had four or five of them at one time around 10:30PM. I think they were Spodoptera dolichos but am not entirely sure as they were also new to me. They were beautiful little moths though with intricate brown and cream patterns on their wings.

I guess that nasty local wine is good for something, anyway.

While I am still struggling to identify all the beautiful species of Odonata around me, with particular emphasis on dragonflies and damselflies in my county (Bladen County, NC) and on my property, I wanted to take a moment to document the resources I'm using and some ways I've used to try to reduce my confusion.

My number one resource has been the NC Odonate Website at https://auth1.dpr.ncparks.gov/odes/a/accounts.php
This website is fantastic with one caveat: you sort of need to know which Odonate you're looking for so you can do a search for that species. The species accounts are excellent and you can click on a county and see where others have seen the particular species you may be interested in. You can also get a list of the species in a specific county. So I was able to get a list of the species I might be able to find in Bladen County.

Field Guides are also essential and I've found the following to work the best for me:

1. "Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East" by Dennis Paulson
2. "Dragonflies & Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast" by Giff Beaton
3. "Dragonflies of Texas" and "Damselflies of Texas" by John C. Abbott

That last one may not appear to be useful for other states in the USA but between the two volumes, it contains most of the Odonata (although not all) found in North Carolina and the format is fantastic. Each species gets two pages with one page devoted to photos or illustrations of the creature and the other page listing identification, similar species, status, habitat, and a discussion for the species. There is also an illustration that is the approximate actual size, which is very helpful for me (I have trouble with size).

There are also excellent comparative pages of the male appendages of various species in a genus as well as female appendage comparisons (which actually would require a microscope or good magnifying glass to see well).

I have other Odonata guides as well because each one of these offers slightly different information. No guide is absolutely perfect. None has much (if any) information on tenerals or exuviae although Abbott's books do have more information on immature. The others also have some information on immatures (but immatures and females continue to be a challenge and very confusing for me).

Here's the other thing: folks on iNaturalist have given me tips on identification and in almost all (if not entirely all) the tips have contained gems of information which are NOT found in any of these guides. Good grief! There is so much to learn!

So, in order to help reduce my confusion, I've resorted to the following: I've been creating tables of species that I tend to confuse and include information from all the tips and all the guides so that information is in one location that I can use to help in identification. Here is an example:

On some, I'll need to list all the segments (S1 - S10) or even thorax stripes (T1, etc) but this is a way to get the tips and information from all sources integrated into one place. The only downside is the lack of illustrations/photos which are of such enormous assistance in the reference books and web sites.

In the future, what I intend to do is to download and print the species accounts from the NC Odonate Website, add my photos that have been confirmed for that species on iNaturalist (print them), and then add my comparative tables in a notebook to form a guide which will help me. The beauty of this is that it forces me to digest the information in a way that is useful to me so it helps me to learn. And it will eventually give me a reference book that will assist me in my quest to improve my identification skills.

I'm hoping that this may be helpful both to me and to others. It can be done for anything really (plants, etc) that is confusing.

The Patsy Pond Nature Trail in Newport, NC turned out to be good for the Attenuated Bluet (Enallagma daeckii) and Amanda's Pennant (Celithemis amanda), both of which were new to me. There were also Cherry Bluets (Enallagma concisum), Eastern Pondhawks (Erythemis simplicicallis), and Citrine Forktails (Ischnura hastata) around the shallow pond about 1/2 mile from the entrance to the nature trail. The day was sunny but still fairly cool (mid 70's F) and breezy.

When I got back to Bladen County, the swamp creeks had really dried up a great deal, with just a few shallow pools of water here and there. While we still have a lot of Great Blue Skimmers (Libellula vibrans) in the fields, along with a few Ischnura hastata (they are ubiquitous) and Ischnura posita, I didn't see any Orange Bluets (Enallagma signatum) in what was left of the runs or the vegetation along the runs. The weather has still been a little cool, but it was sunny and warm (82 F) when I went out yesterday. I saw very few damselflies in general. I don't know if the cooler weather we've been having and lack of rain has affected them or not.

But we are trying to create a more natural area in the shallow part of our pond and have planted Spider Lilies, Pickerelweed, and Lizard's Tail in that area so if they do well we might attract a few damselflies and dragonflies to that area. Since the shallow end of the pond always has water, perhaps it will create a good environment for them.

In my attempts to learn more about Odonates, I've noticed something. This is just anecdotal and may only seem to be the case where I've observed Odonates in Bladen County and Carteret County, North Carolina, USA.

When I started the year, by the middle/end of February, I noticed a lot of Ischnura posita (Fragile Forktails) as well as Ischnura prognata in the swamp areas and wooded delta where I saw them last year. Tenerals and adults were in abundance and in fact, I'd never seen so many Ischura prognata (Furtive Forktails) at one time as I did in those last weeks of February.

In the drier, upland, sunny areas such as trails through the woods, by the end of February and early March, the Epitheca cynosura (Common Baskettail) (with a few Epitheca semiaquae--Mantled Baskettail-- thrown in) and Plathemis lydia (Common Whitetail) were everywhere. A few darners and clubtails showed up as well in March.

The darners and clubtails I noted included::
Anax junius (Common Green Darner)
Epiaeschna heros (Swamp Darner)
Nasiaeschna penthacantha (Cyrano Darner)
Gomphaeschna furcillata (Harlequin Darner)

Gomphus exilis (Lancet Clubtail)
Gomphus lividus (Ashy Clubtail)
Arigomphus pallidus (Gray-green clubtail)

I even saw one Didymops transversa (Stream Cruiser)

Then in April, the Enallagma signatum (Orange Bluet) showed up in large numbers at the streams at the edge of the swamp.

After a couple of weeks, however, the numbers seemed to dwindle to more "onsie-twosies" where they were still around to be observed, but not in the large numbers. I rarely see the Epitheca cynosura except as one zips by infrequently and even the numerous Enallagma signatum are just two or three per stream instead of the large numbers seen earlier.

In late April/early May when I visited Suggs Mill Pond Gamelands (Bladen County, NC, USA) there were large numbers of Celithemis ornata (Ornate Pennant), Erythemis simplicicollis (Eastern Pondhawk), and Erythrodiplax minuscula (Little Blue Dragonlet) everywhere.

That is not to say that there were not other species as well, but I wanted to note the species that were literally everywhere and "unmissable."

It seems to my completely uneducated eyes that every few weeks a few species may emerge in large numbers and will be very much in evidence and easy to find. Then their numbers dwindle down over the next few weeks to a more dispersed, normal (?) level where I'll find them. but they aren't just everywhere and underfoot all the time. (There are a few exceptions such as Eastern Pondhawk, Common Whitetail, and Great Blue Skimmer, which are simply around all the time all summer long.)

Now, in mid-May, on my recent trip to Carteret County, NC, USA, I found Erythrodiplax berenice (Seaside Dragonlet) in huge swarms everywhere. It was a species I wanted to see and I didn't know if it would be difficult to find. As it turned out, they really were everywhere and often in large numbers. At least at this point in May.

The Enallagma doubledayi (Atlantic Bluet) was also very much in evidence at a pond on the Salter's Creek Gamelands, along with both Lestes australis (Southern Spreadwing) and Lestes vidua (Carolina Spreadwing). There was also an Anax longipes (Comet Darner) cruising the pond as well as several species of Libellula (King Skimmers).

So I am curious to see how the next few months play out in terms of the species I'm able to observe. I'm not the best at finding and identifying Odonates but it's exciting to see the species around me.

I've been too quick to glance at a photo and think I have the right identification lately when in fact, I didn't look closely enough and got the identification incorrect. This really annoys me because most of the time, it's an obvious or just silly mistake.

So to try to avoid this in the future, I'm going to try to exert more discipline and write out in the comments why I selected the specific identification. This may force me to take a better look at the photos to pick out exactly the traits which support my identification.

This slows the process down greatly but perhaps it will improve my accuracy. (And prevent me from doing things like adding a photo of a baskettail dragonfly to an observation with a photo of a Gray-green Clubtail. Doh. Or identifying what was clearly an Eastern Pondhawk as a Great Blue Skimmer. Another doh moment.)

Onwards and upwards.

Thanks to @trinaroberts for this tip:
If you're interested in learning more, take a look at the ID guides and keys at https://sites.google.com/view/flyguide/species-guides/syrphidae. The key to genera of Eristalini and then species in this genus should get you to this ID.