White Milkweed and daily odes

White Milkweed, Asclepias variegata is common along our road and usually when it blooms one can find their first Great Spangled Fritillary of the season on or near it, no luck yesterday. It seems that the White Milkweed on the early sun side of the road is doing terrible because of our cold and wet weather and due to the fact that the highway mowing crew timed poorly and the trees are chest high where the milkweed is. I did see fresh American Ladies and Summer Azures on it.

The weather here has been chilly (64 degrees) and windy not the best for finding butterflies yet I did OK yesterday on my 1.5 hour walk up the road.

My friends Jeff and Will were over on Saturday night Jeff remarked that he'd never seen an Azure Bluet before. Well my yard is the only location in the state of North Carolina I have seen the species before. I have found it in KY and PA on DSA trips.

Both these Azure Bluets, Enallagma aspersum were found where Jeff parked his car on Saturday. The above photo is the female which was very hard to get to sit still for a photo. The lower photo is the male Azure Bluet. In all yesterday I saw 7 of them.

Below is a Common Green Darner with its exuvia freshly emerged in our pond with a waterlily behind it! Normally these guys emerge after 10PM and can fly by midnight. Guess the cool damp days have changed that as we also saw one emerging Saturday afternoon in the pond.

Below is my first of the year female Slaty Skimmer. I've been told by dragonfly collectors that this bug has the worst bite of any dragonfly they have ever handled. I've never had any bite me and I have handled a few of them. Last week I touched my nose to a Common Whitetail on our porch railing!

This photo below is a teneral male Eastern Pondhawk, Erythemis simplicicollis. The males start out green like the females then with age the males turn blue

Dragons and Damsels Part 1

Currently my feed is down as I switched to feedburner, good idea not too sure about it.

I just love to find these dragonflies and damselflies in the natural habitat. I have found 42 species of them here at my little pond. Here are some samples from my pond and a small ( I do mean small) bonus!

At top right is a pair of Amber-winged Spreadwings in tandem. The female is ovapositing eggs into the plant stem. The male holds her head so she can mate with him. This photo was taken from waders in 2 foot of water in my pond with a tripod. I sweat ed and waited out this photos for over an hour. They were never even slightly disturbed.

Next we have a Common Green Darner that was emerging in my pond at about 11 pm. Too hard to shoot outside so I brought it in and shot a series of photos as it emerged, using a blue sheet for a background.

The Common Green Darner is pumping up its wings, not quite ready to fly off.

Now for your bonus! These sprites (damselflies) are so tiny I'm sure I spent years wading through them without ever noticing them. They are about 3/4 inches long and blend into the grass very well.

The first one is a female Southern Sprite perched on a reed.

The last one is a pair of Sphagnum Sprites in a "wheel" mated. Telling these sprites apart is not the easiest thing to do. Also to photograph these sprites like this one has to nearly lay down in a bog to shoot them.