A warm, clear day turned my birdwatching morning into a dragonfly frenzy in Newark this week. A small slow stream runs through Merrill Park South and a wide, muddy bend proved very productive. For details of how to get to Merrill Park South, consult the birdy blog
http://www.redgannet.blogspot.com/First was a dragonfly with large blotches on its wings which flushed from the grass above the bank, then settled on a rock to have its picture taken. It was identified as a
Common Whitetail female
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The rocks created a semi-dam across part of the stream and allowed me to get out into the middle of the river and look back towards the bank. Two forms of what I assumed must be pennants of some sort were dog-fighting with each other over the shallow bend in the stream.
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One was the male of the Common Whitetail. They would settle from time to time, but at a distance, so I had to get my feet wet and muddy again to get close enough for a picture.
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This one is a
12-spotted Skimmer The dog-fights continued with, at one point, as many as eight odonata of 4 different species (the pennants, Blue Dasher and a Green Darner) chasing each other up and down the stream. A video would have been more use than a stills camera.
For reasons of incompetence, the pictures may seem low resolution this week. Simpletons in the settings department are to blame.
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On some floating mats of weed, were a couple of different zygoptera. They were very common in the muddy bay, laying eggs among the weeds.
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I now know that one of the damselflies was an
Eastern Forktail and I am assuming that the layers were females. Another was very distinctive with a violet abdomen and a blue tip.
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It proved to be a
Variable Dancer.
Evergreen Meadows is a private estate in neighbouring Edison. Beside the approach road is a boggy patch that provided more rich pickings. The pennants showed again and a red meadowhawk sat well for me.
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There is a lot of controversy and confusion about red meadowhawks. A number of species are very similar and cannot safely be separated in the field.
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So unless anyone can tell from this photo, it will remain a mystery.
Next, I cycled on to Menlo Park which has a lake with formal edges and no bankside vegetation for the most part. The island end provides a small proportion of bankside that is better suited to dragonflies and they love the stakes around the island,
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but sadly, so do Green Herons.
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Eastern Amberwings and Blue Dashers were very common. Soft floating weed provided ovipositing opportunities and even a feather sufficed as a perch in the absence of anything else at the formal end of the lake.
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There is a confusing set of bluets that ought to be examined in the hand for definitive identification. I think that this is possibly a Familiar Bluet, but since it has such close look-alikes, this may prove a hasty assumption.
If I can put a name to all the odes that I saw today, I could end up with my biggest ever list of 14 species.
Odonata species 8
Variable Dancer, Familiar Bluet, Eastern Forktail, Fragile Forktail, Green Darner,
12-spotted Skimmer, Common Whitetail, Blue Dasher,
Meadowhawk sp, Eastern Amberwing,
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