Odonates and the North Texas Floods of 2015
Since the recent epic flooding of North Texas a lot of LLELA has been underwater. Many places are now standing in water that have not seen that in 5 or more years. I was hoping we'd see Dragonfly and Damselfly not present during the drought.
I've been more than surprised by the finds. We've added numerous first time observations and some that have not been seen since 2007. Prince Baskettail, Swamp Darner and Carolina Saddlebags have been observed and entered here.
Along our Cottonwood Trail last weekend I observed hundreds of nymph casings from newly emerged dragons and even got to observe a damselfly emerge. Numerous Common Green darners were observed filling and drying their wings before first flight. It was truly and awe inspiring experience.
This coming weekend Phil Plank and myself will be attempting to use video and time-lapse photography to capture the act of emergence. It's such and exciting prospect to capture the change from aquatic predator to the beautiful flying dragons we love.
If you get a chance to visit LLELA in the early morning hours don't miss the extraordinary experience of viewing dragons and damsels emergence.
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Awesome stuff!
Do you have a list of the dragonflies and damselflies of LLELA? It'd be cool to make a guide of that (if there isn't already one). :)
Ah -- I see there is an insect one:
http://www.inaturalist.org/guides/1164
I've not updated the Insect guide in a while. Will work on that Sunday.
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