Wednesday, September 20, 2023

LATE SUMMER DRAGONFLIES OF PROSPECT PARK SEPTEMBER 17

Walk leader Hugh Sansom


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Hugh Sansom <hughsansom@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 11:35 AM


Hi Peter —

 The walk went well, and I learned a few things that I could do if there are any more walks in the future. 7 people showed up. I gave some introduction to dragonflies and damselflies, identified the species we saw, gave some background when there was something of note (male vs. female, territoriality, reproduction, hunting, color characteristics, flight abilities, vision abilities, life cycle).

We observed the following:

Dragonflies
Blue Dasher                                several                                     Lower Pool, Boathouse Bridge    
Autumn Meadowhawk                1 or 2                                        Lower Pool
Great Blue Skimmer                   between 4 & 8                          Lower Pool, Boathouse Bridge
Twelve-spotted Skimmer            1                                               Boathouse bridge
Eastern Pondhawk                      2 or 3                                       Boathouse bridge
Slaty Skimmer                             maybe 1                                   Boathouse bridge
Green Darner                              too many to count                    meadows
Black Saddlebags                       a few                                        long meadow

Damselflies (a little less certain here because some species resemble one another)
American Bluet
Fragile Forktail
Eastern Forktail
Orange Bluet

Thanks!

Hugh
                                                                                                              

Hugh Sansom | MS, MPA
GravityLens • 917.604.4844 • linkedin.com/in/hughsansom/