Gipsy Lake

As I have previously discussed, chasing dragonflies - and birds - gives me a great opportunity to visit places I've never been before or haven't been to in a long time. From 1971-72, Kathy and I lived in White Sulphur Springs, and I got to know the countryside pretty well in the short time we lived there. One of my favorite places was Gypsy Lake in the foothills of the Big Belt Mountains, at the base of a beautiful glacial cirque. Yesterday, I visited this lake for the first time in many years - and it is as gorgeous and serene as ever! There was a very good assortment of dragonflies and damselflies along the edges of the lake and even into the upland areas. The visit was a success from that angle - especially since there are presently no dragonfly records for Meagher County. So each of the 9 species I found were new county records. The eyes on this American emerald are really something to see. Since the pursuit of dragonflies has consumed almost all of my time this summer, bird photography has taken a back seat. The icing on the cake for this visit to Gypsy lake was a very cooperative spotted sandpiper. An indication of how much dragonflies have dominated my life in July is the fact that this is the only bird photo I have taken all month!

Ancillary Benefits - Viewing Montana History

There are some really great ancillary benefits to all of the bird and bug chasing I do. Viewing relics of Montana's past is one of them! In many areas of rural Montana, there are old homesteads, barns, mining relics, wooden grain elevators, vehicles and other living history "books" that give one a great view into how people lived many years ago. I don't always take the time to stop and photograph these great old reminders of the past, but I'm getting better at it. Here are a few of the images I've managed to record in the past several months.

Western Montana generally sports a bit of a different look from the relics of the eastern plains.
But in terms of quantity and quality, the old abandoned homesteads of the east are hard to beat because of their bucolic nature.
I sure hope these "living" pieces of history are still standing when our grandchildren are old enough to appreciate them!

A Celebratory Day!

On July 14 last year, I hiked into Morrell Lake and Falls northeast of Seeley Lake in an attempt to locate a Spruce Grouse to photograph. I mentioned this briefly in a previous blog. Before reaching the falls, I skirted a shallow pond that was teeming with dragonflies. After changing from my telephoto to macro lens, I waited patiently for some of these neat bugs to perch somewhere so that I could take some photos. Two different species were cooperative and I obtained reasonable photos of each. This event is what initiated my present obsession with these insects. The largest and showiest of those I got images of I later determined to be a Chalk-fronted Corporal. The other was more difficult to ID, but I concluded that it was a Crimson-ringed Whiteface. Friend and expert amateur dragonfly aficionado Nate Kohler confirmed this ID. And since he had not yet found this species himself, he was anxious to join me in another hike to this pond.

Yesterday, the near anniversary of my transformation into a dragonfly nut, we finally joined up to head back into this pond. Although the weather was not very promising, we took a chance that the sun would peek out long enough to stimulate some dragonfly activity. Immediately upon reaching the pond, we spotted some of what looked like the sought-after species. But after netting them, they turned out to be closely related, but not the target we wanted. Then the clouds moved in and the bugs moved up out of sight into the trees. After skirting the entire circumference of the lake with no success, we headed up the trail a ways to look at another nearby body of water nearby. Nothing looked promising there, so back to the first pond we ambled, discouraged but not ready to give up. Eventually, sun reappeared for a short while - and the dragonflies again came down to feed. And finally we were able to capture some of the sought after Crimson-ringed Whitefaces.Nate takes photos and keeps very detailed records of all his dragonfly outings and he also collects a few specimens for future reference. While the weatherman tried to put a damper on this outing, it was none the less quite successful. Nate was pleased with finding a new species for his records, and I was rewarded with a great learning experience provided by Montana's best amateur Odonatologist - dragonfly expert!!

Eight-spotted Skimmers

This morning, I headed north toward Cascade where a friend has some land along the Missouri River - with a very nice oxbow slough that looked promising for dragonflies. There are no dragonfly records for Cascade County so I scheduled this jaunt to see what species I could record for the county. As I had hoped, the slough supported a good number and variety of dragonflies - plus some damsels similar to what I had been finding in the Helena area. The most colorful of the Odes encountered today - or at least those I could capture or get close to - were the eight-spotted skimmers. And they were also quite abundant. While exploring the slough, I encountered a side channel that I wanted to cross. The site of an old beaver dam provided that opportunity - with water only up to mid calf on my hip boots. On my return to the side channel, I decided to cross several yards down channel from my initial crossing. In the first small step, the water was over my hip boots. And after the second, the water reached lower chest level. After letting out a WHOOP - and several other verbalizations I can't repeat here - I managed to make it back up onto the shore. My hip boots each now had about 2 gallons of water in them, and the status of my camera and binoculars was of great concern. I emptied the hip boots and then decided to shed most of my clothes to wring them out and set them in the sun for a while. An inspection of my camera and binos revealed that they took a quick dip with me but seemed to have suffered no ill effects. Of course, this was good news! Assessing my present situation - partially naked body and all - and hoping that no one was around to see my unclothed state of body, I nearly fell over with laughter! In the many decades I have spent wading rivers and lakes, this event left me wetter than I can ever recall. And it is a good thing that with age, I am now able to laugh at myself for the brazen self confidence of not testing the water's depth before taking the first step!

Was this skimmer image worth it? I think so! There is another very similar species - Twelve-spotted Skimmer - in Montana, but so far this year, I have only found one of them and that was in Helena. The naming of these species gives a pretty clear indication of what they are when you see them. Each wing on the Eight-spotted has two dark spots - for a total of eight. On the Twelve-spotted, each wing has 3 dark spots, but I don't have a photo of the latter for this year yet.

A new species of damselfly has just emerged in the past several days - Common or Northern Spreadwing. Note that the wings do not fold neatly over the back as in many other damsels - thus the name spreadwing. If you look closely below the thorax on this image, you will note what looks like small eggs. Actually, these are parasites that are sometimes found on Odes(Dragonflies and Damsels), but they apparently are not especially detrimental to the bugs unless the infestation is especially heavy. Remember to click on the image to enlarge it. When searching for Odes, you never quite know what you might run in to. My lifetime of fly fishing has brought me considerable familiarity with mayflies - insect Order Ephemeroptera. Now that birding/dragonfly watching/photography have mostly replaced my days of trout fishing on Montana's rivers and lakes, I don't pay quite as much attention to mayflies. But in the past week or so, I have had the opportunity to photograph several of these dainty and beautiful insects. Here is one I encountered today. I'm not quite sure what the species is, but it sure caught my eye!!

Finally! A Flame!!

After I caught the "bug" for dragonflies last summer, I quickly acquired a field guide to aid in the ID learning process. In perusing thru the guide, two Montana species struck my fancy and I searched diligently for them the latter part of last summer without success. The first was the Common Green Darner, one of the largest of the darner group and colored with bright greens and blues. The other was the Flame Skimmer, brilliant red just as the name implies. This year brought a more determined effort to locate and photograph these 2 species.

The Common Green Darner is among the few migratory species and it was early June when I spotted my first one skimming over a local pond. But my efforts to photograph and/or capture one of these specimens was pretty much a total failure. The following image of a tandem pair ovipositing - laying eggs - was the best I could do. About a week ago, friend and dragonfly expert Nate Kohler mentioned that he had visited some warm springs areas near Drummond that usually have an abundance of Flame Skimmers. It took some doing to keep me from immediately rushing over there for a look but I resisted until yesterday. Not knowing exactly where Nate found these bugs, I exited the freeway at Drummond and took the frontage road west. Several roadside ponds I stopped at had a few Flames but were too deep and/or steep for good viewing opportunities. Several more miles west along the road, a very promising area of ponds and springs caught my attention so I stopped and began exploring. This wetland complex was absolutely loaded with a number of dragonfly species - including many Flame Skimmers. After searching a bit, I found a site where at least one of them was perching frequently and offered potentially good photo opportunities. It didn't take much time or effort to capture my first digital images of this species that was high on my "hit" list. After taking probably 100+ shots, I retrieved a video camera from the vehicle and took a few video clips of the flame resting on its perch. Guess I'll have to figure out how to get these into my blog! One of my other objectives for the day was images of a Blue-eyed Darner. This was a species that had just begun hatching in the area and was a new species for me. While I was unable to find one that would perch for a photo, I did capture one and get some hand held images. It is not hard to see how it got its name!! Click on photo to see fine detail.With the 5 or more other dragonfly species I found in this very productive wetland complex, the turned out to be the best "Ode" days of the year so far!! Sure hope there are more like this to come!

Southward Bird Migration Has Begun!

Local bird populations always seem to be in a state of flux - and they usually are! It was only during the first few days of June when the final northward bird migrants arrived or passed through Montana. These are usually common nighthawks and some others - primarily insect eaters. And now in very early July, we are getting our first movement of some species southward. Several days ago, a neighbor who had filled her hummingbird feeders about 10 days previously reported her first visits from rufous hummers. So I put my feeders up on Tuesday, and by that evening, I had my initial rufous visitors. And I'm now seeing reports of rufous already in Arizona. This species breeds mainly west of the Continental Divide but then seems to head east over the divide in Montana and then southward. Migrant numbers will not peak until late July, and we will also see movement in calliope hummers in the near future. The rufous males are generally very aggressive at defending their selected feeders so several well spaced feeders may help hold more birds in your yard.Hummingbirds are not the only species showing some movement south. Just this morning, the Montana Birding Listserve had several notes about shorebirds showing up in their usual haunts - west of the divide near Kalispell and east at Freezout Lake - some of the best areas for these long distant migrants. Their numbers will keep building until well into August, but some laggard species - dowitchers and others - will still be present into October. The lesser yellowlegs below is but one of many shorebirds species that may be sighted in August - when a good day may present a dozen or more species!So it is a rare month in Montana when we don't have some changes in the bird species you might expect to encounter on a day in the field.