New Numbers - Aug 6
There is news.
Thanks to 8/5 observations from sallypsandpiper and rickbarricklow, Henry County now has over 1,000 observations. This was the last county to reach that goal. So, hurray and thanks!
My thinking was 1,000 observations in a county would get us to 60 species. Almost. We are making progress on all counties with 60 species, but we're not there yet. I'm not sure what the observation goal should be to reach 60 species. We started the year with 16 counties below the 60 goal, now just 11. Those 11, in order of greatest need: Noble, Belmont, Hardin, Allen, Auglaize, Brown, Seneca, Henry, Marion, Monroe, Meigs. Only 3 of our targets have not had new County records this year - Hardin, Monroe, and Meigs. If you're curious, check the county pages on OOS web -
https://www.ohioodonatasociety.org/county-species-lists
Observations are still coming in for earlier months, but April and May were very good compared to past years and gave us a big head start. June was also good, but below 2022 and 2023. July was not bad, but starting mid-July, the numbers are averaging nearly 200/day lower than last year. August is following the same lower trend. It's been pretty hot, maybe we're worn out? Maybe other distractions? Dragons in flight seem pretty good.
No movement on County Complete - at this point only Eastern Forktail has all 88 counties. 5 species only need just one more county:
Common Whitetail - Putnam - now complete
Eastern Pondhawk - Putnam - now complete
Eastern Amberwing - Crawford
Widow Skimmer - Fayette
Blue Dasher - Putnam - now complete
Fragile Forktail needs 3 counties - Defiance, Paulding, Putnam - now complete
So, some attention needed in the NW.
Our season species total is now 133 - thanks for the additions of Laura's Clubtail (tuckerc), Black-tipped Darner (laureldoc), and Green-striped Darner (tuckerc). We'll need at least 2 more - most likely after July would be Smoky Rubyspot, Lance-tipped, Striped Saddlebags. Or some other rarity making an appearance (Furtive Forktail, Mottled Darner, Cherry-faced Meadowhawk).
Of our 133 species, 45 species are below their 5 year average. 20+ species have no chance, or a very remote chance, of meeting the 5 year average - flight season is past, or later season numbers are limited. A few that are surprising - Band-winged Meadowhawk (21%), Blue-faced Meadowhawk (11%), Paiute Dancer (34%), Citrine Forktail (37%). The lower numbers for Paiute Dancer and Band-winged Meadowhawk are related to the habitat loss at CJ Brown Spillway.
On the plus side, 69 species are now over their 5 year average, with 10-15 others likely to reach their 5 year average.
Comentarios
Just a dumb question from a newbie: any tips on how to snap a good photo of flyers c.f. perchers. I think my pond has only one species of flyer, but I'm beyond frustrated trying to get a photo.
Fliers are a challenge, and both technique and technology are needed to reliably capture identifiable images.
The short answer is ‘continuous fire’. Set up your camera for its fastest rate of fire, and take a LOT of images. Autofocus can do more harm than good, so try turning off autofocus, manually focusing at a distance you anticipate the dragonfly will be, and start firing the shutter before the subject flies thru an area within that distance,
Dragonflies vary a great deal in flight patterns, both by species, and by the types of flight. Some species hover, especially if there is some wind, making manual focus, and sometimes autofocus, practical. When a male is patrolling a territory, he may fly in a relatively constrained and consistent way, making it practical to anticipate a place it will transect, so you can manually set the focusing distance and reasonably expect to capture it.
When dragonflies are foraging, they tend to fly much farther and more randomly, making photography more difficult. Again, it depends on the species. Some do fly semi-regular patterns when foraging, and with some patience, you can anticipate that they will eventually fly past your pre-focused camera.
Ponds are a good place to practice flight capture technique, because there are often species that fly regular territory patterns within the boundaries of the pond. In the spring, many Ohio ponds have Common Baskettails, which continuously follow consistent patterns close to the edge of the pond. Right now, many Ohio ponds have Eastern Amberwings, which don’t typically fly consistent patterns, but they tend to remain within a very constrained area (and there are often a lot of them). Prince Baskettails and Black Saddlebags are common pond fliers right now that stay within the boundaries of the pond, but range relatively far, and they are fast. The are challenging to capture, but they usually spend multiple hours of the day flying. Like many species flying over ponds, they are relatively easy to ID from a photo, even if blurry and out of focus. Common Green Darners and Comet Darners are usually easy to ID even from a smeary blur, which is good, because they often make very short visits to a pond, and may not return.
It strikes me that the species that are down (Paiute, Citrine, and meadowhawks) are all shallow wetland species that typically live in areas with little water. I feel like the periods of drought this summer have really hurt them. For example, the seasonal wetlands at Cox are completely dry and have been for a while now. And Blue-faced Meadowhawks have been scarce there. Hopefully, these last few rains will help unless we go into another dry spell.
I second jheister's comments. Fliers are a huge challenge. The rapid fire approach he describes is what I use, but it takes patience and persistence and some practice. Some more details I find useful follow.
I just point the camera in the general direction of the flier and try to follow it's motion using a fairly wide angle setting on my lens and a set focus distance (usually 15-20 feet). Using a high f-stop (like f-18) helps to increase the depth of field and is possible with an auto ISO setting (if your camera allows for that). A lot of pictures get tossed. I electronically zoom up in post processing if the focus looks decent. A lot of times the flier is on the edge of the focal plane since pointing is approximate at best, but with some practice it can be done regularly, and it beats trying to look through the viewfinder to find a small flying insect going 20 miles per hour. The typical higher ISO results in grainy pictures, but ID can still usually be made.
I know it probably doesn't really matter much, but when talking about the most common dragonflies in Ohio, I think Fliers should be on a separate list from the Perchers. There will always be much more observations of perchers in relation to their real numbers than for fliers...it's like comparing apples to oranges.
INaturalist is great for highlighting the species known to be in a location, but it is weak on population size, and the absence of a species sightings isn’t necessarily evidence that there are none. Observation bias is inevitable.
Habitat accessibility causes observation bias, too. I’m confident that we are under observing species that prefer moving water because many watercourses, especially in Ohio, have very limited public access, and even when an area is open to the public, the lack of walking paths means that many creeks are physically difficult to access.
Excellent points. Maybe someone should develop a species observation difficulty factor/grade. Not sure how to do that or how useful that would be, but it sounds interesting.
I like Mike’s idea a lot. I’d start with a 2-dimensional map that displayed [Population] X [Days that Identifiable Adults Spend in Publicly Accessible Areas]. The second could be unpacked into a lot of behavioral differences
Laura’s Clubtail would be in a corner, because there probably aren’t a lot of them, and when they emerge, they disappear until they mature. Adults then spend some unknown amount of time in areas that are physically and legally challenging for humans.
We should pursue this idea with a thread on the Facebook group.
Update Aug 12
Now just 1 county short on 2 species:
Eastern Amberwing - Crawford
Widow Skimmer - Fayette
And Eastern Amberwing now has 88 counties - thank you donald177 for reporting from Crawford Co.
Someone needs to find the Fayette Widow.
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