mchlfx's Favourites

I have been visiting the Texas Panhandle in winter for 40 years (my first visit to this area was with @gcwarbler in 1978). I enjoy looking for northern hawks and other northern species that can show up in this area in winter. While Rough-legged Hawks are regular, I have never seen as many in one day as I saw today. I saw at least 18 different Rough-legged Hawks in the northern Panhandle today, way more than I saw of Red-taileds or Ferruginous Hawks). I think I am posting perhaps 6 of them, but this is just a fraction of what I saw. Amazing!

Female Diplacodes trivialis (two different individuals)

I got up early and wandered around looking for...dragonflies. And other stuff.

Very peaceful walk that seemed to last an eternity but end too quickly. This area was virtually a paradise on earth, if you can tolerate the heat/humidity.

There were rotting mangoes all over the ground because it wasn't economically feasible to pay people to pick and haul them off because they were so plentiful and cheap.

Lots of dragonflies too...this is where I first saw Rhyothemis triangularis and Pseudagrion rubriceps.

I am posting scans of some old, marginal 35 mm slides. gcwarbler had retained many boxes of some of my culled slides from 20-30 years ago. I have enough to keep me busy for a while with scanning, etc. (thanks Chuck….I think!). These will all be of records I had not posted to iNat previously. Sorry for the marginal/poor quality of most of these but they are all I have.

Blue-faced Ringtail
Erpetogomphus eutainia
female
Guadalupe River, Independence Park near U.S. 183 bridge over the river.
Gonzales, Gonzales Co., Texas
30 July 2003

A couple of folks have asked me personally and on iNat:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2735824
about Blue-faced Ringtail (Erpetogomphus eutainia) and the history of the population in Gonzales. I had never posted the initial record but will do so here and just give the history for those curious about it.

In June, 2003, Dr. John Abbott and I spent some time looking for dragonflies at Palmetto State Park in Gonzales Co., and he mentioned a small clubtail called Erpetogomphus eutainia (John did not speak common names in those days :-) which had last been seen in the 70s as far as he knew. He told me there were some records by Paulson, Dunkle, and others at Palmetto S.P. John had never seen the species and he hoped to find it sometime. I was fairly new into odonates at that time, and being retired from my law enforcement profession, I had the time to start really looking for this rare critter and I made it a mission to find it. I spent some time in the collection at U.T. looking at all the known Texas specimens of Erpetogomphus eutainia and made a list of all the locations where the specimens had been found. Essentially, all the Texas and U.S. records of the species at that time were from the San Marcos River in the general vicinity of Luling, Texas. During July, 2003, I went out to look for for this bug more than a dozen times. Finding places to access the San Marcos River was the most challenging issue, as most of you know that so much of Texas land is private. I scoured Palmetto S.P., boat launches and canoe launch areas between San Marcos and Luling, etc., and had no luck. I visited all the public parks in San Marcos which allowed access to the river as well as any bridge crossings, etc. The San Marcos River joins the Guadalupe River near Gonzales, so I started checking areas on the Guadalupe where I could get to or near the water. On July 30, 2003, I found a female clubtail on the south side of the Guadalupe River near the U.S. 183 bridge on the south side of Gonzales, and got a few photos of it. I was not certain this was the Erpetogomphus eutainia, but I thought it probably was. I was very eager to get home and look at my shots on a larger monitor. At home, after studying my shots, I felt fairly confident I had found a female Erpetogomphus eutainia.

Long story short, I sent John an email with images that I had taken in Gonzales. I called him on the phone and asked if he was at his computer and he said he was. I told him to check his email. He knew I had been looking for this species and asked me if I had found it. I said “you tell me”. He then saw my shots and said “You found it!” Two days later, on 2 August 2003, I took John back to the spot where we found several males and females and we both got images of a male eating a Powdered Dancer (Argia moesta):
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143390
From that time up until 2010 or so, the species was regularly found at many areas of Independence Park as can be seen on the iNat maps. On some visits I found 10-20 individuals on a single visit. In 2011 and 2012 the species became harder to find, but there were a handful of records during both of those years. It has been mostly absent since 2012 (one sight record with no photos in 2014) which I mentioned in the record I posted yesterday:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3725913

So, that is the history of the bug at Gonzlaes as I know it. There have been a few records by some students of John’s another 20 or so miles down the Guadalupe River near Cuero in DeWitt Co., but I have never found them there. Ed Lam has photographed the species at Medina River Park south of San Antonio, but on two visits in proper season, I’ve not found it there either. There are a few other records along the Rio Grande in south Texas. This is a late season species with 95% of the records being between 1 July and 15 October. Why the species was relatively easily found 2003-2012, then mostly vanished for 4 years...I don't have a clue. Habitat seems pretty much the same as far as I can determine. But such population fluctuations certainly occur. As an example, in 2007 Carmine Skimmer (Orthemis discolor) was common to abundant in the Austin area and a dozen or more could be found in several areas in a short time. Since 2007 the species has been very rare in Austin and I can count the records on one hand that have occurred since 2007. No idea why.

Ok. This one has me stumped. We I first observed this I was thinking Swamp Darner but the Abdominal markings just don't match up. Then I started looking at Cruiser but most of them have green eyes. I even looked through emeralds and still not sure enough to even guess the family. This is the only angle I got but Briang got some photos also. Maybe his can help.

Help most appreciated here!

@greglasley @nlblock @briang

Male Sympetrum eroticum ardens

Thanks to @scottking for the help on this one.

I took a trip to Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) which, at that time in my life, was probably the most dangerous mountain bus ride I had been on. Thankfully I befriended a strange guy whose awkward conversation kept me distracted from my own anxiety.

Immediately after the bus stopped and I got out I saw this beauty perching probably about head-height and I casually swiped it from underneath. So I guess I broke my own rule of taking an in situ shot prior to capture but I didn't want to draw any attention to it. I knew the local people would find it too strange and it could potentially cause some misunderstandings.

So, I took some photos discreetly and said goodbye to the only Sympetrum friend I ever met in China. If I could do it over I'd do it differently and risk confrontation, maybe carry any small guidebook with me to help bridge the understanding of this non-malevolent behavior.

I saw a few other species of dragonflies on the mountain besides this one (actually this was at the base--we still had to take a cable car to the top). Up highere we saw many Pantala flavescens visible hovering around scenic overlooks and couple of other Libellulidae I have yet to identify.

Comically, our bus ride pal hung out with us a bit and as we peered over the edge of a very dangerous and handicap-unfriendly lookout point he breathed a deep sigh, told us how beautiful it was and how it would be the perfect place to commit suicide. Thankfully, we all walked away together to check in to our overpriced hotel.

In restrooms at Brazos Bend SP. ID is based on a review of images on BG, particularly the two genera in the Paramormiini tribe, here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/1118574/bgpage
I can only find one species mentioned for North America.