Odonata and us (still in Poland, but not for long) (1 Viewer)

[opisska]

Yesterday, I had to drive 200 kms to get my second Pfizer shot and as the direction was Bialystok, we thought it's a good opportunity to add Aquatic Warbler to our yearlist - which we easily did at their most famous spot at Bagno Lawki. The following acoustic night search for Baillon's crake turned out to be pointless as expected, but it gave us the opportunity to look for some insect in the morning - well, we also looked in the evening, but the Dragnoflies wouldn't cooperate and the "best" photo looks like this - Emerald Dragonflies (Family Corduliidae) .

In the morning I first jumped the gun a bit after seeing a Damselfly with prominently blue eyes and thus declaring it Blue-eye. Eventually I realized that the body pattern was completely wrong and it was a good old White-legged - White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis pennipes) - ... but why is Blue-eye called so, if its blue eyes aren't that unusual?

We then paid a visit to a marsh near Zajki, the central point of which is a structure that we jovially call "the mosquito hide" - but the mosquitoes were actually not that bad in the daytime (while they were absolutely insufferable in the night visit for the crakes). This has proven a good idea, because the place was rather rich in Large White-faced Darters - Large White-faced Darter (Leucorrhinia pectoralis) . That was basically the last Odonata species that we did not have which is commonly reported in Poland these days on ornitho.pl, so now the hard part begins ... or the wait for more species to start flying around?

Then the trip abruptly ended, because unlike the first dose which I did not feel at all, the second one got me good and mostly lost the ability to stand, not to mention to walk somewhere.

Of the 62 species reported in Poland on iNaturalist we have now seen 28 (even though not all necessarily in Poland).

 

[pdwinter]

Yesterday, I had to drive 200 kms to get my second Pfizer shot and as the direction was Bialystok, we thought it's a good opportunity to add Aquatic Warbler to our yearlist - which we easily did at their most famous spot at Bagno Lawki. The following acoustic night search for Baillon's crake turned out to be pointless as expected, but it gave us the opportunity to look for some insect in the morning - well, we also looked in the evening, but the Dragnoflies wouldn't cooperate and the "best" photo looks like this - Emerald Dragonflies (Family Corduliidae) .

With those appendages and that abdomen pattern I would be thinking female Epitheca bimaculata Eurasion Baskettail rather than an Emerald species.

 

[opisska]

Would you be thinking that strongly enough to count yourself a lifer? Because that's what a Baskettail would be, which would obviously be nice!

The ID given there is just iNat's AI guess, I always go with it when I don't know, expecting people to set it straight later.

 

[pdwinter]

Would you be thinking that strongly enough to count yourself a lifer? Because that's what a Baskettail would be, which would obviously be nice!

Well not from that picture! There are supposedly three similar species:- Four-spotted Chaser, Scarce Chaser and Yellow-spotted Emerald. I have plenty of field experience with the former 2 but not the latter. If I had watched this flying I would have been able to eliminate the chasers but with no experience of Yellow-spotted Emerald it might have been difficult to get an ID - depends how good the views were. That said the anal appendages of Baskettail are quite distinctive in the photos I've seen.

I don't do flight shots as they turn out even worse than your pic ! Because there are so few of them and they are large insects, my approach for dragonflies is to do a lot of research beforehand, watch, identify and then, if I can, get a photograph. Doesn't always work

My approach with other insect orders such as hemiptera is to take pictures and identify later!

In the morning I first jumped the gun a bit after seeing a Damselfly with prominently blue eyes and thus declaring it Blue-eye. Eventually I realized that the body pattern was completely wrong and it was a good old White-legged - White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis pennipes) - ... but why is Blue-eye called so, if its blue eyes aren't that unusual?

As I carry out dragonfly surveys in the UK and Spain I tend to use the scientific names as it gives us a common language to talk in (although the spaniards do seem to pronounce the scientific names differently!)

The previous 'english name' for Blue-eye was Goblet-marked Damselfly. When Dijkstra wrote his European Guide he decided that he would make up some new 'more sensible' english names. There are three european species in the Erythromma genus:- E. najas (Large Redeye), E.viridulum (Small Redeye) and E.lindenii (Blue-eye) and my guess is that he chose Blue-eye to distinguish it from the other two species of the genus. Of course, Small and Large Redeyes are not the only damselflies with red eyes and White-legged Damselflies are not the only damselflies with white legs and as you have found Blue-eyes are not the only damselflies with blue eyes.

 

[opisska]

A lot of stuff happened in our lives since the last update with the most notable event being us moving to Prague, which consumed a lot of our free time. We manage to do one last trip to NE Poland, which was quite productive. A relatively random area around the upper Narew river near Bondary was particularly great for butterflies, but it also had Scarce Chasers - Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva) - which have later the same day turned out to be not so scarce at all - and above the river itself was a fantastic Blue Emperor - Blue Emperor (Anax imperator) - which we have seen before in Spain, but quite badly and I have never realized how huge those things are before. I am not great with females, but people tell me there was also a Southern Migrant Hawker - Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis) - another lifer.

Moving on a half an hour east to Siemanowka, Ruddy Darters were everywhere - Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum) - but more importantly, we have finally found some spreadwings - Common Spreadwing (Lestes sponsa) - I was always loosing my belief in their existence and then suddenly there was this area around the dyke that was full of them!

For the completely final Polish trip, done in the last few days before we moved out our last things, we headed just to a nearby area, as it was raining elsewhere anyway. The lush green temporary wetlands along the endlessly wild course of the Bug river have produced a Norfolk Hawker - Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isoceles) - and apparently a Brilliant Emerald - Brilliant Emerald (Somatochlora metallica) - which I mis-IDed originally.

Then we went for two weeks to Costa Rica, where we also found a lot of Odonata, but I haven't even looked at them yet, so the only other thing to report is the Southern Hawker - Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) - seen last weekend in the Ore Mountains of the Czech Republic. I am not sure if I will ever stop being impressed by these huge ones!

 

[opisska]

Our Odonata-watching has been slowed down by three confounding effects - firstly moving to the Czech Republic not only meant a slightly lesser access to good natural sites and diversity, but also much more foreign travel (as we are no longer as much motivated to do local trips as we were while living in the magnificent NE Poland, so we end up abroad much more often); secondly, in particular for Damselflies, we have actually seen most of the relatively common species, so it's harder to find something new (whereas Dragonflies, where we lack a lot of targets, are much harder to find). Yeah and also it was winter for a lot of the time

One thing I however noticed is that the Damselfly composition is slightly different here - I was curious, so I looked it up on iNaturalist and it's quite interesting - see the screenshot bellow. Basically the top species are pretty similar - with the huge exception of Variable Bluet, which was one of our most-observed species of insect overall in Poland but is not seen in the Czech Republic AT ALL. I also think I am yet to see a single Red-eye in the Czech Republic (quite common in Poland, in particular at one favorite site of mine), while Large Reds are indeed much more prominent here, just as the comparison would suggest. Quite nicely we have a few a ponds with a little reeds a few minutes' walk from our current place (which we are leaving in September though) and that's full of White-legs, Bluetails and Azures, exactly as the listing predicts.

I would like to really learn more how to look for Dragonflies on purpose - yeah, I can find Sympetrums and Black-tailed/Four-spotted/Broad-bodied are common at our ponds and easy to look for on the ground and stalks, but the huge diversity of others keeps eluding me except for rare random sightings.

 

[pdwinter]

I would like to really learn more how to look for Dragonflies on purpose - yeah, I can find Sympetrums and Black-tailed/Four-spotted/Broad-bodied are common at our ponds and easy to look for on the ground and stalks, but the huge diversity of others keeps eluding me except for rare random sightings

I would be buying (or borrowing) books e.g. Vážky (Insecta: Odonata) České Republiky Dragonflies of the Czech Republic by Dolný, A.; Harabiš, F.; Bartá, D.

If you are an academic (or have an academic e-mail address) then Researchgate can find a lot of things that have probably not yet reached the public domain.
e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/public..._in_the_Czech_Republic_Odonata_Coenagrionidae

and a google search will bring you

https://www.libellula.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/33_3-4_Cerny_et_al.pdf

New Records of Lilypad Whiteface Leucorrhinia Caudalis (Odonata: Libellulidae) in the Czech Republic

New Records of Lilypad Whiteface Leucorrhinia Caudalis (Odonata: Libellulidae) in the Czech Republic

www.academia.edu

There is usually a lot of information on habitat in academic papers - as I don't use iNaturalist (Observado is preferred in Spain) I don't know what information you can get on habitat from the system.

Hope that helps

 

[opisska]

Thanks! Buying a local book is actually a good idea, since that this is a highly unusual destination - one where I know the language

One thing I really don't know is how to look for them. The "easy" dragonfiles I named are so easy because they sit, fly, sit - so you often see it flying, then follow it and watch it when it sits. The other dragonflies either just constant zip by or sit somewhere without movement, both quire difficult habits to folllow.

 

[pdwinter]

One thing I really don't know is how to look for them. The "easy" dragonfiles I named are so easy because they sit, fly, sit - so you often see it flying, then follow it and watch it when it sits. The other dragonflies either just constant zip by or sit somewhere without movement, both quire difficult habits to folllow.

I think it becomes the question "How do I find the male dragonflies that are not perchers?".

Emeralds (Somotachlora, Cordulia) are difficult because they come to the water for short periods to patrol and then disappear, usually fairly high up, in bushes and trees. If you are lucky you may see where they land and if you are luckier still they will be close enough to view with binoculars for ID.

If you were to visit the site ealier in the day they might well be resting away from the water, warming up and feeding occasionally.

As an example just recently in Álora I arrived at a site (a shaded mountain stream with pools and mini-waterfalls) at 08:20 (unprecedented!) at a chilly 21C. There is a little 'meadow' just up above which had the sun whereas the stream did not, so I went up there and there were a variety of odonata resting and feeding. This included 4 Oxygastra curtisii (Orange-spotted Emerald) - 2 males and 2 females. I managed to photograph one of the females and would have had a photo of one of the males but for a grass stem between me and him that messed up the autofocus. Since 2011 I have seen single patrolling males on 5 occasions at the pools along the arroyo but only once seen one perched close enough for a photo when it fortunately landed in a small tree near me. I had never seen a female Oxygastra before this recent visit!

Hawkers (Anax, Aeshna, Brachytron, Boyeria) tend to behave similarly to the emeralds, except they seem to patrol for longer periods, but can be a bit easier to find 'hanging up' although I have lost count of the number of Emperors I've seen land, approached carefully, and then not seen again until the split-second I get too close and they're off again.

I spend a lot of time undertaking dragonfly surveys which necessitates walking around ponds / lakes or along streams / rivers / canals because the object is to determine the breeding species and breeding occurs at or near water (females approaching the water will often be intercepted by a male and taken a little way away from the water for copulation). With the linear sections I usually end up walking back along the same section so, where possible, I get some distance from the water and often find resting females (and males) and immature insects.