chaseyb's Favourites

Large adult male sperm whale in the 40-50ft range stuck on sandbar roughly 50 yds off the beach. Whale was alive and breathing as of 2:45pm when I left. FWC, Mote Marine, as well as local police and sheriff department on scene had a portion of the beach roped off.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/local/venice/2024/03/10/beached-whale-venice-florida-on-sandbar-off-of-service-club-park/72921162007/

In a 1973 publication (Description of the Nymph of Lestes inaequalis) by Minter Westfall and Ken Tennessen, they described the nymph of L. inaequalis from Fox Pond northwest of Gainesville, FL. As far as I can tell, there are no other records for Elegant Spreadwing (L. inaequalis) in Florida. The article described finding exuviae on April 13 1969 and again in April 1970.

Thankfully this pond is still mostly state-owned, though the western portion backs up to some homes. On Sunday May 16, Rex Rowan, Michael Drummond, and I visited Fox Pond to see if this population still persists 51 years later. We found one male Swamp and one male Elegant! The pond is heavily vegetated, and we heard juvenile heron calls. We didn't want to accidentally spook a juvenile heron out of its nest, so we didn't walk the entire state-owned perimeter of the lake.

Lifer! @stevecollins Check this out! Super unexpected find for this spot! Wish I could get better pictures but it was all the way at the top of a tree. Tried climbing the tree to get better shots but it wasn't stable and I didn't want to scare it off so I stuck with these distant shots from the ground.