billhubick's Favourites

These are photos I took on 23 Oct 2006 to document Monterey County's first population of Paddle-tailed Darner. It was first discovered on 22 Oct 2006, by William Hull, a visitor from Ohio, who observed 5 or 6 Aeshna darners at "Cattail Swale" in Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. He took a long series of photos, and identified it as Paddle-tailed Darner on the basis of, among other things, the paddle-shaped appendage and the blue spots atop abdominal segment #10. This identification was confirmed by Dennis Paulson. I came the next day, and found the darner shown in my series of photos (here), including the yellow color on the lateral thoracic stripes (also noted by Paulson) and a close-up of the male appendage (turned 90° for ease of viewing), and a flight shot. More details at http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/Paddle-tailedDarner.html

On 25 Aug 2007, I had arranged access to private property just downstream of the Lonoak Road bridge (which is public). Paul Johnson and I spent two hours here; I focused on dancers. There were an estimated 300 dancers; I netted 5 males and a female, and photographed a dozen more. The first photo shows 4 tandems oviposting from one a single floating reed at water's edge. As described in iNaturalist https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/179275333
I discovered that ~10% of the male dancers were paler blue than typical, and these proved to be Aztec Dancers [i.d. approved by Odonata Central, as discussed in the observation mentioned). This leaves ~250 California Dancers that day within my view. Here are photos of two males, and then two photos of different male's appendages as viewed from above. These attempt to show that the tori are separated by about their own width in a top view; in Aztec the tori are separated by a gap less than a width of a tori. Since 2007, Calif Dancer was been found widely in southern Monterey County, but this is still the only site with documented Aztec Dancer in the county.

Found on private property while conducting field work with the landowner.

Deep in the woods, clearly werent planted. Several were established and flowering. A concerning find, as this species could easily spread elsewhere and become invasive.

Rita Carratello and I saw 3 on Chews Ridge near the fire lookout, and I saw another on the hilltop above the parking lot on the west side of road. As these are a vulnerable species (with one subspecies extinct, I think), I guess I should use the subspecies

Walking around in the pre-dawn darkness, I was suddenly aware of something sizeable moving around almost at my feet. Fumbling with my phone, was able to activate the light and camera in time to capture this poor image before it shuffled away into the undergrowth.