Over the July 4th weekend, with bird singing behavior beginning to subside and the resulting long hot afternoons, I spent quite a bit of time catching dragonflies at Pine Lake in the northern Manistee National Forest. I am a decided beginner when it comes to these creatures, but it is really fun to not know what I am holding and be forced to figure it out.
The clear highlight was my first ever Dragonhunter (long-awaited), which I had in th
e net within 1 second of spotting. What a beast!
The Prince Baskettail was quite common, most individuals appearing much less heavily marked than those in my books (someone please correct me if the ID is wrong).
As often seems to be the case with clubtails, I was unable to arrive at a confident ID with this one. It was dying (cause unknown), and was quite small (about the size of the body length bar for Least Clubtail in "Dragonflies of the North Woods"), but did not seem to match up with any of the species in that book. Does anyone know what this is?
Finally, on a kayaking trip near Cleveland OH (Cuyahoga River) the weekend prior I caught my first ever mosaic darner and was pleased to identify it as a Cyrano Darner. Its flight pattern was more obliging than most others I have seen. The book seen in the background is the fantastic Dragonflies and Damselflies of Northeast Ohio, a must have title for those in our region.
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