Naples Botanical Garden

We enjoyed our visit to the Naples, Florida, Botanical Garden on 21 January 2018. Band-winged Dragonlets were fairly common during our Florida road-trip. Most of the dragonlets we saw in southern Florida were females, like in my second photo, which seemed to vary considerably in color pattern. Dragonlets come as males, females, or as andromorph females. Andromorphs look like males and may thereby avoid being harassed by amorous males. Band-winged Dragonlets may be partially migratory. They range from Argentina north into the southeastern United States (Paulson (2011).

We also photographed Four-spotted Pennants, like the male in the following photo. Four-spotted Skimmers are found from Arizona east along the Piedmont of the southeastern states. As in these photos, they often rest on exposed perches. They hunt for flying insects over ponds.  Paulson (2011) writes that this skimmer can occur in swarms.

Although birdlife did not seem to be abundant, the Naples Botanical Garden clearly had potential. We were able to capture closeups of several herons, including this Little Blue and Tricolored. I have linked these species to previous posts in this blog.

Land-birds were less evident. This Northern Mockingbird appeared to be setting up territory, when Erika took its picture. Later in the season, mockingbirds will aggressively attach intruders.