Spreadwing ID help needed [Germany] (1 Viewer)

[David_]

Hello,

on the weekend I visited a nature reserve close to the Dutch-German border. I took some photos of Spreadwing but struggle a bit with the IDs. Could you help?
Thank you!

1. Common Spreadwing?


2. Initially thought it's a Western Willow Spreadwing but as it seemed a bit small I used observation.org image recognition to check my ID and for a cropped version of the image it says Small Spreadwing with 100% confidence. Is it a Small Spreadwing?


3. Robust Spreadwing?


4. Robust Spreadwing?


5. Common Spreadwing?


6. Spreadwing but unidentifiable to species?

 

[pdwinter]

I would agree with #5 as Common Spreadwing based on the appendages and #2 has a yellow back of the head which takes it into Small/Migrant so probably Small Spreadwing but always tricky with immature individuals.

I recently entered two years worth of Spanish odonata sightings to Observation.org and was less than impressed with their image recognition !

 

[David_]

Thank you Paul.
Good to know more experienced observers also find the IDs tricky.

I recently entered two years worth of Spanish odonata sightings to Observation.org and was less than impressed with their image recognition !

I had two photos of a Downy Emerald taken from slightly different angles (maybe 2 degree, the images looked basically identical), for one it said Downy Emerald with 99.6% confidence, for the other one Brilliant Emerald with 99.8%. I don‘t mind the different outcomes for the photos but the degrees of certainty displayed

 

[pdwinter]

Thank you Paul.
Good to know more experienced observers also find the IDs tricky.

The important thing with ID is to know what you don't know!

I have seen Lestes dryas Robust Spreadwing on one date at one location in the UK, concentrating on taking as many photos as possible. I don't have the field experience / photo collection to know how to distinguish individuals of Lestes sponsa and dryas from various angles without seeing well the appendages.

I have seen quite a few Lestes virens (Small Spreadwing) but only in Spain where the subspecies looks a lot more like Lestes barbarus (Migrant Spreading) so you have to get good photos of the appendages.

I'm sure there are some people who look at this forum who have the field experience of Robust / Common Spreadwing.