53 Photos - Jun 3, 2012
Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Photo: Very happy to be able to add this Roseate Skimmer to my album today. This is a record first for Bernalillo County though they've been recorded less than a mile upstream in Sandoval County before. There were several cruising the banks of the Rio Grande today not far from my house. I have not enhanced the color in the photo, only added a little contrast.Photo: Plains Clubtail Dragonfly photographed last week along the Rio Grande not far from my house. #odonata   #dragonfly  Photo: Photo: Photo: Pale Snaketail Dragonfly - There were lots of these cool gomphids all along the Jemez River and Rio San Antonio in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico last week. #odonata   #dragonfly   #twt  Photo: Photo: Dot-tailed Whiteface Dragonfly. This was a new county record for the species, which is always fun to get. Found along a small pond at the fish hatchery up in the Jemez Mountains of NM at about 7800 feet elevation.Photo: White-belted Ringtail Dragonfly in the Arroyo de las Montoyas, Corrales, NM, near where it empties into the Rio Grande. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the last bits of his brunch sticking out of his mouth. This species is frequently seen perching on the ground. #odonata   #dragonfly   #twt  Photo: Powdered Dancer Damselfly male starting to accumulate the pruinosity (powder) which gives it its name. Not visually exciting to average folks, but pruinosity is rare in other species of damselflies. Males typically perch on rocks at shore or out of the water; this one was about 25 feet from the Rio Grande on a split log. #odonata   #damselfly   #twt  Photo: Great Spreadwing Damselflies in tandem in the grass alongside an irrigation ditch south of my house. The reddish brown color is the muddy water as the ditch level was about a meter below my feet. Spreadwings are among the few damselflies to hold their wings outstretched instead of along their abdomens. #GrassTuesday  curated by +Ray Bilcliff +Marilou Aballe +Margaret Tompkins  #odonatapoker  curated by +viviane godenne  #odonata   #twt  Photo: Aztec Dancer Damselfly on a cottonwood leaf today. #leafonthursdays  curated my +Marilou Aballe and +Ray Bilcliff  #odoanata   #odonatapoker  curated by +viviane godenne  #damselfly   #twt  Photo: I found this Striped Meadowhawk on Saturday. Not a rare species, but the first one I'd found. There were two perched near a stagnant pond at the west end of the Alameda Bridge over the Rio Grande. This is a pale male. From what I've read, males in wetter regions have black all along the abdomen below the red. #odonatapoker  curated by +viviane godenne  +BugsEveryday  #twt  Photo: Continuing my posts from last weekend, a Variable Dancer damselfly at Bottomless Lakes State Park, NM. Note the lovely colors, especially the violet and blue on the end segments. [Am I the only one having problems with G+'s automatic tagging of photos added to an album? I clicked the 'x' to remove Grass Tuesday from the tags, but still it showed up. Is it me or G+?] +BugsEveryday and an early +Buggy Friday  #LeavesOnThursday  curated by +Ray Bilcliff and +Marilou Aballe  #odonata  Photo: Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly female. This is not a common species in New Mexico; we mostly have Western Pondhawks here. +BugsEveryday  #wildlifewednesday  Photo: This Citrine Forktail damselfy is tiny, about an inch in length, but the bright yellow abdomen really stands out. The weather at the Bitter Lake Dragonfly Festival was not conducive to seeing very many odonates, but I did get a good number of species that I will post over the next week or so. [update: My apologies for the inappropriate tags - G+ added those and I didn't realize until too late what it was doing and I haven't been able to figure out how to remove those after the fact.] +BugsEveryday and late entry for +Macro Monday Photo: This Desert Whitetail dragonfly male may look at first glance just like the Common Whitetail, but this species has white filling the inner area of the wings except for black at the base, whereas the Common has only a small patch of white next to the black base. Although their ranges overlap, one never finds both in the same location, I'm told. Another bug from Bottomless Lakes near Roswell, NM. +Buggy Friday  #buggyfriday  curated by +Ray Bilcliff +Sherry McBriar and +Dorothy Pugh  +BugsEveryday  #odonata  Photo: Today's photo from the Bitter Lake Dragonfly Festival last weekend is a Black-fronted Forktail damselfly - another tiny guy in an awkward  position to photograph. +BugsEveryday , a late +Buggy Friday  #odonata  Photo: And now for something slightly different... a Seaside Dragonlet dragonfly in the hand of Jerry Hatfield, a guide at this year's Bitter Lake NWR Dragonfly Festival. It was cool and overcast that Sunday, but these colorful bugs were active, though not many others. I got several photos of both the male and two varieties of the female up on my website, but thought this was cool, especially as it shows the size. Why a Seaside Dragonlet in New Mexico? Glad you asked. This is the only American dragonfly species that can breed in salt water, which is why it is found in coastal marshes. If one looks in their guide book for the species' range, you will see a narrow, shallow-arc of range in southeastern NM corresponding to the watershed of the Pecos River though a zone of high soil alkalinity. The cut-off oxbows of the Pecos and the sink holes in the area of Bottomless Lakes and the Bitter Lake NWR are saline waters where these cool odonates can be found (having wandered here in the far, far distant past.) +BugsEveryday  #odonata  Photo: Continuing my posts from the dragonfly festival weekend, a Bleached Skimmer at Bottomless Lakes State Park, NM +BugsEveryday  #odonata   #twt  Photo: This Plateau Spreadwing damselfly was found at Bitter Lake NWR in the same area as the Seaside Dragonlets. There are fresh water channels nearby where I suspect it breeds. #GrassTuesday  +Grass Tuesday  #odonata  Photo: Last (I think) of my Bitter Lake Dragonfly Festival photos, this one an Eastern Ringtail at Bottomless Lakes SP. +BugsEveryday  #odonata  Photo: We're close to, or at, the end of the season for Odonates at least in the northern and central areas of NM. Unless I'm lucky, this will be the last species photo to add to this album for the season. Black Saddlebags are usually only seen in flight, or perched very high, and thus not always easy to photograph. This ragged, old guy was having a short rest in the warm autumn sun beside a small pond in the Albuquerque bosque. He was alert, however, and quickly flew off when I tried to shift position. #BuggyFriday  Curated by +Ray Bilcliff  +Sherry McBriar  and +Dorothy Pugh +Buggy Friday  +BugsEveryday