Hunting for Dragons with Greg Lasley, Eric Isley, and Robert Salinas.

After a long semester, I decided to take a day off and spend an entire day looking for critters and other interesting things. Greg graciously offered to show me around Southwest Metro Park, and later Hornsby Bend.

As soon as I got out of my vehicle at SW Metro Park, I met Eric and Robert for the first time, and was treated to several new and exciting dragonflies, for me at least. Banded, Halloween, and Marl Pennants, Eastern Ringtails, and Widow Skimmers were all found and photographed in the first 30 minutes.

Another real treat was to see a Four-striped Leaftail, another first for me, and many Sulpur-tipped Clubtails (I had only ever seen a single female before this).

The odonate diversity was probably the highest I've ever seen in a single site so far in my early 'career' hunting for odonates: I documented 21 species at SW Metro today (6 new species for me), and 12 at Hornsby Bend (one new species for me) later in the afternoon (the weather wasn't very good for odonate hunting later in the afternoon), with only a couple species found at Hornsby that were not at SW Metro. Another new dragonfly for me was the Thornbush Dasher in an old sand pit near Hornsby Bend. Thornbush and Blue Dashers were everywhere in the pit, and I only saw two other dragonflies there: a Roseate Skimmer and a Widow Skimmer.

Overall, this was a wonderful day of nature fun. Thanks very much Greg, Eric and Robert for sharing your knowledge and this site with me!

Posted on 14 May, 2016 21:42 by beschwar