Big Dragonfly Day Part 3

This post is the third in a series of four that describe Scott King and my search for dragonflies on 2 June 2015 to Washington Co., Minnesota. These photos were taken at the Warner Nature Center. The first is a Dot-tailed Whiteface, a species I have seen many times previously. They are often abundant on floating vegetations in lakes, but I have also seen them flying around the edges of forests. And, yes, they do have white “faces,” this one just happens to be looking the wrong direction.

This spreadwing was abundant around the lake edges. Not until my return home did I realize this species is new to my ever-growing dragonfly list! Scott King told me this was an Elegant Spreadwing, but my ears heard “Emerald.” Note the pale sides of the thorax, pale back, lower legs (tibia), pale back of the head, and emerald color on the back of the abdomen—all field marks for the Elegant Spreadwing. This spreadwing is found over lakes and lake-edges across much of eastern North America, west just barely into Minnesota.

Scott announced that Taiga Bluets are among his favorite damselflies. On the other hand, I have heard this claim made for at least a dozen other Odonata we have encountered during our travels. I posted on this species before and mentioned the field marks include the black adominal segments ahead of the blue adomine spot and the “U"-shaped mark at the beginning of the abdomen. This species appears early as it is able to withstand freezing during our Northern winters.

Springtime Darners, another new species for me, are among the first darners to fly in the spring. This darner hid in the grass. Scott, being a true dragonfly scientist, carries a net with him. I simply have no room for a net among my camera, binoculars, eBird list, and notepad—I guess I will never be a true entomologist.  He captured this individual to more clearly show me the two yellow stripes on the brown thorax and the dainty blue spots along the sides of the abdomen. Notice also the dark, basal wing spots. Springtime Darners fly low to the ground along waterways. Scott, by the way, released unharmed all the creatures he netted this day.

Reddish Egret

Last March, as Erika and I drank coffee at the Rockport, Texas, McDonalds, I noticed a Reddish Egret in a shallow bay across the street. I excused myself and ran over to take these photos. This heron is the rarest of North America’s egrets, and has the most active foraging behavior of the family. I have previously blogged about the color morphs of this egret.

Reddish Egrets race around, flapping their wings, and stamping in the water—all apparently to locate and startle small fish. At least six foraging methods are described by Lowther and Paul (2002)— "Wing-Flicking, Open Wing-Feeding, Canopy Feeding [creating a shadow in the water that attracts sun-sensitive fish], Foot-Stirring, Hovering Stirring, and Stand and Wait and Wade or Walk Slowly.” The photos above show a few of these feeding behaviors.

Big Dragonfly Day Part 2

This post is the second of four reporting on Scott King’s and my dragonfly expedition to nearby Washington County, Minnesota, on 2 June 2015. These photos were taken at the Warner Nature Center, which I described in Part One of this series.

The first two photographs are of new species for me. The first is a Dusky Clubtail; the second, a Calico Pennant. Dusky Clubtails often perch on or near the ground. Their best field-marks are spines on their cerci (the terminal extensions off the abdomen). The Calico Pennant is a strikingly beautiful species for which I’ve been searching for several years. This species bears a superficial resemblance to Halloween Pennants, but the yellow spots on the females, like on this photo, and the wing spots that do not cross the whole wings are diagnostic. Although we found this individual in a dry field, Calico Pennants are often found near water.

The last two photos are of species I have seen previously in Erika’s garden.  Both are baskettails, the first a Common, the second a Spiny. If you greatly enlarge your view of the last dragonfly, you might notice the tiny spine off its cerci, from which the Spiny Baskettail derives its name. Notice also the more extensive black spots on the hind wings of the Common Baskettail. These dragonflies are called baskettails because they carry their eggs on the underside of their abdomens. This ball of eggs is attached to an aquatic plant. The ball unravels, releasing up to a 1000 eggs (Mead 2009).

Killdeer

Last Saturday, Erika and I returned to the parking lot of a plant nursery in Carver County, Minnesota, where we discovered a Killdeer nest. To our amazement, three fledgling Killdeer, in the company of their parents, scurried about the very same location as the nest, now a month later. If one were to band such chicks, they would take the same size band as an adult!

Young leave their nest almost as soon as they hatch. Killdeer do not feed their young, which are immediately independent. Adults lead the hatchlings to feeding areas. The young stay in the vicinity of their parents until the young are able to fly—usually within a month or as soon as 20 days from hatching or as long as 40 to 80 days (Jackson and Jackson 2000).

Big Dragonfly Day Part 1

On 2 June 2015, I accompanied Scott King to two locations in nearby Washington County, northeast of St. Paul, Minnesota. We spent a fabulous day dragonflying. The first place we visited was the Lee and Rose Warner Nature Center, privately owned by the Science Museum of Minnesota. Oddly the Center is closed to the general public, opened only to school groups and other classes. Scott knew one of the employees and has done dragonfly censuses for the center. 

The acres around the center are gorgeous and contain several clear, unpolluted lakes. We heard a calling loon and we were greeted by thousands of dragonflies. The first two photos are of Chalk-fronted Corporals. The woods were full of these dragonflies, which are often found in large swarms.  The upper individual is an immature. As they age, they acquire the blue-gray pruinosity evident in the second photo. All ages consume mosquitos and Blackflies, and thus should be welcome community members. I have previously written about how this dragonfly gets its name.

Above the lakes swarmed hundreds of Emeralds. The first is a Racket-tailed Emerald. I had only seen this species once before, at Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Dakota County. Several alighted in the reeds along the lake edge. Note the uneven yellow band at the base of the abdomen. A new dragonfly for me was the American Emerald. As you can see in the photo below, the yellow ring around the base of its abdomen is narrow and even. 

American Emeralds are found from eastern Canada and the Appalachian Mountains west to Alaska and the mountains of California. Racket-tails are more restricted in range, found from Minnesota to eastern Canada and New England. Both fly over marshes and open water. Racket-tailed Emeralds also fly through forests and more often land on the ground and perch in forest openings (Paulson 2011).

Spotted Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpipers breed across most of Canada and the northern half of the United States. They winter from southern United States to southern South America. With their spotted underparts, breeding-plumaged Spotted Sandpipers are easily identified. In any plumage, their teetering tail bobbing and jerky wing beats are good clues to their identity. Reed et al. (2013) report a number of folk names, due to the tail bobbing—“teeter-peep, teeter-bob, jerk or perk bird, teeter-snipe, and tip-tail.”

When it comes of habitat selection, Spotted Sandpipers are generalists. Mostly they just need some sort of shoreline. This bird is foraging in algae along a bay next to Rockport, Texas, in late March.

Great Blue Heron

“The Great Blue Heron is one of the most widespread and adaptable wading birds in North America. Equally at home in coastal (marine) environments and in fresh water habitats...it also stalks upland areas for rodents and other animals…” write Vennesland and Butler (2011). In Rockport, Texas, last March, Great Blue Herons even foraged on dry land along the highway median.

Mottled Duck

Next to the American White Pelican of my last post swam two Mottled Ducks. In fact, I took the liberty to Photoshop out a coupe of pelican body parts in this photograph. The species is found along the Gulf coast, form northern Mexico across to southern Florida.

These ducks are probably a pair. Most Mottled Ducks are paired by the November prior to their nesting. Mottled Ducks are seasonally monogamous, but only females incubate the eggs. Although a few males remain to help brood the young, most males depart during incubation. The females lead the hatchlings to shallow wetlands to begin their independent lives (Bielefeld et al. 2010).

In Florida Mottled Ducks are imperiled by hybridization with feral Mallards. Conservation education efforts are underway to keep people from releasing domestic Mallards into the wild. Otherwise the danger exists that Mallard genes will end the Mottled Duck as a distinct species.

American White Pelican

American White Pelicans, like this one off Rockport, Texas, last March, are opportunistic feeders. Usually they prefer “trash” fish—carp and minnows, not favored by anglers. Regurgitated hooks and lures suggest that they will occasionally consume wounded “sport” fish. Here in the upper mid-west, they also eat salamanders and crayfish (Knopf and Evans 2004).

White pelicans are the synchronized swimmers of the bird world. They cooperatively forage, forming a circle around fish schools and concentrating the fish in the center of the pelican flock.  Other times, the birds herd the prey into shallow water, where the fish are voraciously consumed. Once caught, the prey is swallowed, and not carried in pelicans' pouches to feed their young.

My early mentor, Roxie Laybourne, was a forensic ornithologist. She identified bird species from single feathers. She told a story of two Texas hunters who illegally shot a large white bird. Afraid they had murdered a Whooping Crane, the men burned the carcass. Much to the hunters’ relief, Roxie identified the few feathered remains as belonging to an American White Pelican—still illegal, but with fewer monetary consequences.

Wild Lupine

Last Friday, Erika and I found a patch of Wild Lupine, Lupinus perennis, in the River Bend Nature Center near Fairibault, Minnesota. This plant’s generic name, Lupinus, originates from the belief that the plant depleted, or wolfed, soil nutrients—Lupus is the wolf’s genus. In fact, like most plants in the family Fabaceae, Lupinus fixes nitrogen into the soil, thus adding to the fertility of the land. The Minnesota Wildflower website does not show Wild Lupine as growing in Rice County, but, on the other hand, the prairie where we found it is not native, but planted by the Nature Center.

I can’t look at a lupine and not laugh. Its Monty Python’s fault. Who can forget the notorious British highwayman, Dennis Moore, and his quest to redistribute Britain's wealth by stealing lupines from the rich and giving them to the poor?

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,

Riding through the night.

Soon every lupin in the land

Will be in his mighty hand

He steals them from the rich

And gives them to the poor

Mr Moore, Mr Moore, Mr Moore.

Actually Dennis Moore trafficked in European Lupinus, cultivated species not native, but escaped into parts of the United States, including Minnesota. These plants are larger and have multicolored flowers, varying from white to pink or purple. Due to habitat loss, Wild Lupine numbers have declined. This trend has adversely affected populations of Karner Blue butterflies, since their caterpillars only feed on Wild Lupine (wildfower.org).