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!