Dragonfly Venture to
Dragonfly Venture to
FENCE
Tryon, North Carolina
Sunday, August 8, 2010
We knew it was going to be a hot day- and it was! But thank to FENCE and the Master Naturalist program, we had a full house of folks assembled at the FENCE pond. Thankfully the picnic shelter at the pond provided plenty of shade for us to escape to when the conditions became too hot! Due to the lack of rain the pond was quite low with wide fringes of Pickerel Weed and Spatterdock. After a brief introduction to dragonflies we paraded across the boardwalk in search of our quest. As usual there were many skimmers wheeling and chasing across the water with the most common being Common Whitetail, Carolina and Black Saddlebags, Blue Dasher and the ubiquitous Slaty Skimmer. It was easy to study the body structure, watch their territoriality, egg-laying and enjoy other aspects of dragonfly daily life. Aside from a handful of the very tiny forktails, it was much harder to find any damselflies. This did not make any sense until we discovered that 2 days prior to our workshop, the pond contained very little water. Only pumping some water from nearby Blockhouse Creek allowed us to even have any dragonflies today! Thanks Melissa. As well as looking at dragons and damsels, Janie, Doug and Gale showed us some of the many butterflies that were nectaring on the purple flower spikes of Pickerel Weed. Orange skippers were abundant with many being the common species, such as Sachem, Fiery or Zabulon. But the one caught Janie’s attention turned out to be a very uncommon Dion Skipper- and a first report for Polk County. Actually the most westerly NC record to date! We finished the day with about 20 species of dragons- a great day and thanks to everyone that helped make the day so successful. Photo of Halloween Pennant by Doug Johnston .
| Damselflies: | |
| Ebony Jewelwing | Fragile Forktail |
| Citrine Forktail | |
| Dragonflies: | |
| Common Green Darner | Great Blue Skimmer |
| Calico Pennant | Blue Dasher |
| Halloween Pennant | Wandering Glider |
| Banded Pennant | |
| Common Whitetail | |
| Spangled Skimmer | Carolina Saddlebags |
| Slaty Skimmer | Black Saddlebags |
| Widow Skimmer | |
| Butterflies: | |
| Black Swallowtail | Common Buckeye |
| Eastern Tiger Swallowtail | Pearly-eye sp. |
| Clouded Sulphur | Carolina Satyr |
| Orange Sulphur | Silver-spotted Skipper |
| Cloudless Sulphur | Horace’s Duskywing |
| Sleepy Orange | Least Skipper |
| Gray Hairstreak | Fiery Skipper |
| Eastern Tailed-Blue | Crossline Skipper |
| Summer Azure | Sachem |
| Silvery Checkerspot | Delaware Skipper |
| Zabulon Skipper | |
| Question Mark | Dun Skipper |
| Red Admiral | Dion Skipper (1st Cty Record) |
| Red-spotted Purple | Lace-wing Roadside-Skipper |
| Birds: | |
| Great Blue Heron | Carolina Wren |
| Great Egret | Blue-gray Gnatcatcher |
| Green Heron | Northern Mockingbird |
| Turkey Vulture | Red-eyed Vireo |
| Mourning Dove | White-eyed Vireo |
| Yellow-billed Cuckoo | Common Yellowthroat |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird | Northern Cardinal |
| Eastern Phoebe | Indigo Bunting |
| Barn Swallow | Blue Grosbeak |
| American Crow | Song Sparrow |
| Tufted Titmouse | American Goldfinch |
| Reptiles and Amphibians: | |
| Mud Turtle | Yellow-bellied Slider |
| Snapping Turtle | American Toad |
| Red-eared Slider | Gray Tree-Frog |