New Dragonflies at Bruce Pit

I’ve been spending time on iNaturalist again, updating my list of odonates found at various places around Ottawa and making a list of target species that others have seen that I have not. Bruce Pit was of particular interest to me, as Chris Lewis had sent me her personal list of species last summer; I was missing quite a few species she had seen (though I had found others she had not). Between her list and those listed in iNaturalist, I counted nine regular species that I was missing from my personal list: Black-tipped Darner, Harlequin Darner, Dusky Clubtail, Lilypad Clubtail, Common Baskettail, Prince Baskettail, Emerald Spreadwing, Orange Bluet, and Stream Bluet. One reason is that I usually don’t visit Bruce Pit early in the dragonfly season when some of these species are flying, while another is that sometimes when I visit I only check one or two areas. As a result, I planned to visit the conservation earlier in the season and see if I could find some new species for my personal list.

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Nova Scotia in June

Jun6

Back in March my partner and I bought a trailer in Nova Scotia. We don’t have any property yet so it is currently parked next to a relative’s house. This will give us a place to stay when we go back instead of spending money on an Airbnb – though we have stayed in some nice ones over the years! This also means I could buy a second dragonfly net and leave it there for those occasions when we fly instead of drive.

We took a vacation during the first week of June so I could see it for the first time. It’s amazing – 40 feet long, with an actual bedroom, living area, kitchen area, and dining area and even an electric fireplace! Although it is 12 years old, it has been immaculately maintained with new furniture and a new furnace. We spent the first two days furnishing it and getting to know how it works – the weather was lousy (cold, overcast and blustery) so I wasn’t interested in spending much time outdoors anyway.

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Rainbirding

May24

Heaphy Road in Marlborough Forest has been on my mind for some time now, as I wanted to return and see if there is as large an emergence of dragonflies there as there is at Roger’s Pond at the end of May. I was planning to go on the Victoria Day long weekend, but the weather was so miserable – cool, rainy and windy – that I decided to spend my weekend birding instead. Then I read a eBird report of several good birds there that I needed for my year list – shorebirds, American Bittern, Common Gallinule and – quite astonishingly – several Black Terns. I was determined to visit the following weekend no matter what the weather, though I was hoping the sun would come out so I could find some dragonflies.

Unfortunately the weather was still gloomy and drizzly by the time the weekend arrived and the forecast called for rain all day. I woke up early and was out the door by 6:30, arriving shortly after 7:00. It was drizzling a bit when I got out of the car, but I left my umbrella in my bag as it wasn’t raining hard enough to need it. I heard a Common Yellowthroat and a pair of Great-crested Flycatchers on the walk in.

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The 2025 Ode Season Begins!

May18

I usually see my first dragonfly of the year in April, which is not surprising given that the first dragonflies migrate here from further south during the first prolonged warm spell of the month. They are always Common Green Darners, heading north to find new ponds and lakes in which to breed. It isn’t until later in May, usually the second week when temperatures are consistently in the 15-20°C range, that the local species emerge, chiefly skimmers and emeralds and, of course, damselflies. However, this season it didn’t warm up to 20°C until the very end of the month of April. It was still warm by the time the first weekend of May arrived, and on May 4th I finally saw my first Common Green Darners at a small pond in Stony Swamp – three males, it appeared.

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Springtime Blues

May10

It’s always a relief when March ends and April begins, even though it is still cold and the trails are underwater from all the snowmelt, for that’s when migration starts in earnest. However, it isn’t until late April that I really begin to enjoy being outside. By then the snow is gone, the trails are drier, and there are more birds around to see and hear. Spring doesn’t truly begin for me until the first azure butterflies emerge and the forest is filled with the colours of the woodland flowers known as spring ephemerals. Although I’d seen two butterflies already, likely commas that flew away too fast for me to photograph, it wasn’t until April 13th that I photographed my first butterfly of the year at the Rideau Trail off of Steeple Hill Crescent, an Eastern Comma that posed on the ground.

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In Memoriam – Christina Lewis

Apr30

Earlier this month I was informed of the passing of one of Ottawa’s original dragon-hunters, Christina Lewis. She was not only a mentor to me and Chris Traynor in all things odonate, she was a dear friend and a lovely person – humble, self-effacing, with a quiet sense of humor and deep love of nature.

Chris and her late partner Bob Bracken developed an interest in odes in the 1990s and were tutored by Raymond Hutchinson, Benoit Menard, Paul Catling, Colin Jones and Michael Runtz. They pored over EM Walker’s old publications, corresponded with Colin Jones, and spent time in the field with Raymond Hutchinson and Benoit Menard on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, Paul Catling on the Ontario side, and Michael Runtz in Renfrew County where he lived at the time. These men were the most instrumental in helping Chris and Bob learn how to look at odes, where to go to find them, and encouraging them to document their records. In 1998 she and Bob produced the official checklist of odonates in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, which has been updated several times since then. They wrote many articles for the Ottawa Field Naturalists (and not just about odonates), but their joy came from visiting a variety of habitats just to see what was around, sometimes looking for specific species, often submitting their observations to Ontario Odonata.

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Winter Blues

Apr12

I spent most of the winter hibernating. I have little tolerance for the cold, and the late winter snowstorms made getting out and about difficult – we received just over 150 cm in February and March alone! However, I did want to work on my year list for birds, so when the weather warmed up enough on the weekends I went out to find some of our wintering species. Notable birds around this winter include a few Great Gray Owls in the Ottawa area, a Varied Thrush west of the city, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers at Jack Pine Trail and Mud Lake. I only tried a couple of times to see the Great Gray Owls near me, and did not manage to see any. Although I would have liked to have seen the Varied Thrush, I didn’t feel up to making the drive past Constance Bay. And I tried at least eight times to see the woodpecker at Jack Pine Trail with no success whatsoever. As such, my best observations of the winter were a Wood Duck at Mud Lake in January, and a White-throated Sparrow at the Beaver Trail, found while looking for the overwintering Swamp Sparrow. I didn’t even see a Song Sparrow, a species that now overwinters here in very small numbers, and which I have been finding successfully over the past few years despite being less common than the White-throated Sparrow.

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Odonata Highlights 2024

Dec31

This year has been a good one for odonates. I have enjoyed ode-hunting in a few new provinces, discovered new parks and ponds right here in Ottawa, found lifers in three different provinces, re-discovered species I hadn’t seen in years, and added quite a few new species to places I thought I knew well. Despite the changing climate and weather systems that are occasionally severe enough to damage vulnerable ecosystems, odonates continue to survive and thrive in many parts of eastern Canada. Here are my top ten odonata highlights of the year.

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Last Odes on the Wing: October and November 2024

Dec1

Another ode season is over. Ottawa had some beautiful warm weather during the month of October – there were 26 consecutive days where the daytime high reached 9°C or above (between October 1st and 26th), tying for the 5th longest streak on record. As a result of the warm weather, I thought this would be the year I’d find more species flying later. Our first frost of the season occurred on October 16th with an overnight low of -1°C; this is a week later than the average first frost date. Then a warm spell hit late in the month – October 30th reached a ridiculous high of 22.2°C and October 31st hit 23.9°C, the warmest such days since records began in 1872. The month was mostly dry, with very little rain until the 29th.

November was cooler, though daytime temperatures remained above zero throughout the entire month. It’s not the day-time high that limits the dragonfly season in Ottawa, however; rather, it’s the nighttime lows falling below freezing. While the latest-flying dragonfly, the Autumn Meadowhawk, can withstand a few light frosts, a hard frost will kill both it and the flying insects it feeds on even if subsequent days reach double-digits. November 2nd and 3rd were both below -3°C, while November 9th and 10th were both below -2°C. A string of subzero nights after November 11th followed by warmer but cloudy, windy or wet days after November 20th ended the dragonfly season for good.

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Aurora Borealis

Oct10

I missed the stunning display of northern lights in May 2024 when solar activity produced the strongest geomagnetic storm (K_p = 9) since 2003. I had already seen the northern lights several times as a teenager living just outside Edmonton and didn’t think any this far south could compare, but changed my mind when I saw the fantastic images on social media – beautiful shimmering curtains of turquoise and green and red so vivid I was amazed these photos had been produced by cell phones. When I heard that there was a strong possibility of an aurora being seen on the evening of October 10th I decided to go out and look. I drove south to Rushmore Road to escape the Kanata lights, though of course the light pollution from Ottawa made it far from the dark sky preserve necessary to enjoy the cosmic show.

I was not the only one who thought that a rural cornfield south of the city might be a good spot to see the aurora….one car was already there when I arrived, and over the course of the next half hour more vehicles arrived, parking along the side of the road. This was the first time I’ve ever seen that many cars on Rushmore Road without any owls present!

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