03 May 2012
Variegated Meadowhawks in Michigan
Today during lunch, I found a single Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum) at my workplace in Farmington Hills, Michigan. I know this species has also been observed this spring in Ohio and Ontario this spring.
Maybe this will the year to add this species to several Michigan County lists?
21 April 2012
Moth program at UM-Dearborn
We have a great program coming up on Sunday, 4/29/12, in Dearborn. Seabrooke Leckie, co-author of the new Peterson Field Guide to Moths will be visiting UM-Dearborn for a night of mothing, discussion, and identification. Click here for more information.
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On a damselfly note: I found a couple dozen of newly emerged Fragile Forktails in SW Oakland County on 4/18.
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On a damselfly note: I found a couple dozen of newly emerged Fragile Forktails in SW Oakland County on 4/18.
14 April 2012
First Odes of 2012
The warm weather of the 2011/12 winter and early spring brought a flurry of reports for Anax junius.
For a variety of reasons I haven't spent time in the field away from home or the campus of my workplace. Fortunately, my workplace in Farmington Hills (Oakland County) has multiple ponds on site which gives opportunities for breeding and migratory species.
On March 28th it was quite windy, but sunny. I found a female Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis) perched in an area of lawn downwind of one pond. Just as I reached down to grab the early individual, a gust of wind picked her up and blew her away, not to be seen again.
My second species for the year didn't occur until two weeks later. On April 12th, a female Common Green Darner (A. junius) flew by during my lunchtime walk. Then on April 13th, I found this female perching/hunting along a sunny hedgerow:
For a variety of reasons I haven't spent time in the field away from home or the campus of my workplace. Fortunately, my workplace in Farmington Hills (Oakland County) has multiple ponds on site which gives opportunities for breeding and migratory species.
On March 28th it was quite windy, but sunny. I found a female Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis) perched in an area of lawn downwind of one pond. Just as I reached down to grab the early individual, a gust of wind picked her up and blew her away, not to be seen again.
My second species for the year didn't occur until two weeks later. On April 12th, a female Common Green Darner (A. junius) flew by during my lunchtime walk. Then on April 13th, I found this female perching/hunting along a sunny hedgerow:
27 March 2012
Michigan Odonata Atlas website is up
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Michigan Odonata Atlas is getting off the ground. We have a website up at http://mos-atlas.blogspot.com/. It is not entirely complete, but here are some important things you can find there:
- What it's all about. We're basing the publication on specimens currently in the Michigan Odonata Survey database, but are asking volunteers to help us fill in gaps in our knowledge as we work up species accounts.
- The reasoning behind the fact that for nearly all species, vouchers are required. For some species, photo records are permissible, but the photos have to be curated at Odonata Central and submitted on the same spreadsheet as your physical vouchers.
- Thus, we have a whole page on how to collect, prepare, and submit voucher specimens, and we include a template for the spreadsheet.
06 February 2012
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