Dragonfly Season is Here

Dragonfly season has arrived!  Before I had a digital SLR camera, way back in 2006, I took photos of a dragon on the Olentangy that I believed was a rapids clubtail.  These bugs fly in early June, and are easiest to find when the river is low.  Unfortunately, over the last decade or so, I've never encountered another one, that us until this afternoon.  I took several photographs that should be able to seal its identification.  What a beautiful dragon it is!

-Tom

On the Olentangy

Last Sunday, I had a chance to return to Kenney Park along the Olentangy River where it runs through the Beechwold neighborhood of Columbus.  I spent much of my free time here many years ago. It was nice to visit again.

-Tom

Exploring the Olentangy

Exactly one month ago, Weston and I ventured to my old stomping grounds about two miles south of where we live today.  Like me, Weston is fascinated with technology, buttons, machines, and other man-made things, but he loves exploring "nature" and "the river" just as much as I do.

-Tom

Great Blue on the Olentangy- Camera Critters

June 5, 2011

When I go to the Olentangy, I'm usually there to photograph dragonflies.  So I'm typically not set up or ready to photograph a giant flying bird.  This past weekend I got lucky however, and managed a decent shot of a Heron as it flew up river towards Worthington.  Have a great weekend!

And since it's Saturday morning, I'll think I'll include this post in the Camera Critters meme- it's been a long time since I've participated!






Tom

Wood Duck Pair on the Olentangy

Columbus, Ohio June 5, 2011

I don't think of the Olentangy River in the city of Columbus as a hotspot for wood ducks.  Normally you'd think of a more rural area with plenty of wet swamps but trees.  But each year I spot wood ducks near Kenney Park.  They're much more wary than the local mallards, so most of my photos are from afar.  I hope you are enjoying my little trip back to the Olentangy River, which is where spent much of my free time in 2007 and 2008.

Tom

Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle - Wordless Wednesday

Olentangy River, Columbus, June 5, 2011

Northern Map Turtle, Graptemys geographica

Olentangy River, Columbus, June 5, 2011

So if you know me, or read this blog, you probably know that turtles are pretty much up there at the top of my list as far as animals go.  I've been a turtle nut for as long as I can possibly remember, and I've peppered turtle posts throughout the years at this blog.  I just can't help myself, I suppose, I'm a sucker for a nice turtle.

This past Sunday afternoon I photographed this common map turtle.  Or I thought it was a common map turtle.  I even named my photo for this post "common_map_turtle_olentangy".  I always do a little cursory research before I post something, and my search for common map turtle turned up a wiki article for "Northern Map Turtle".  Northern Map Turtle?  What the heck is that?  Well- it turns out that there is a committee that produces a list of standard common and scientific names for North American Herps north of Mexico.

In their latest publication the committee changed the name from "common map turtle" to "northern map turtle".  Why?  They give this reasoning- "We have changed the name from Common Map Turtle because of the possibility that the word “common” might be misinterpreted to imply abundance rather than to the fact that it has a broad range."

There you go- broad range, not necessarily common.  Therefore, we have the Northern Map Turtle.  That name is going to take me some time to get used to.

-Tom

Prince Baskettail, Olentangy River

It seems like every summer I end up shooting Prince Baskettails in Flight.  This is a fairly common dragonfly- although I photographed it along the Olentangy, it isn't restricted to river habitats.  This species flies back and forth in the same general area, at shoulder level, all day, looking for food.  You can stand in one place for an hour, and they'll fly by you hundreds of times- so they're great for dragonfly-in-flight photography.  I find photographing dragonflies in flight one of the hardest things to do- but when I get home and see shots like this from my new 7D, standing in a river in the hot afternoon sun becomes totally worth it.

Tom

Mallard, Belted Kingfisher

I have been remiss to capture any photographs of Delaware County the past two workdays, so this evening, I'm posting two images that I captured on Sunday afternoon, just before I photographed the great blue heron.  This drake mallard was doing its best to swim upstream through a riffle on the opposite bank, while this female belted kingfisher was perched high above the river, ready to dive for a fish.

Ohio and the rest of the east is experiencing frigid temperatures.  A few years ago at this time, I was still able to photograph autumn meadowhawks, but now everything is absolutely frigid- we're headed for a low of 14 tonight. Stay warm!

Tom

Stalking the Arrow Clubtail

And for my third post of the day (that has to be a record!), I wanted to give a quick update for those that saw my talk at the Great Lakes Odonata Society meeting this past July.  I dropped in to Kenney Park this evening to see if the arrow or russet-tipped clubtails were flying, and it didn't take more than five minutes to spot this guy.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a good shot, and it soon zipped up into the trees.  This is the arrow clubtail, previously unknown from Franklin County until I photographed it in 2007.  In late 2008, Bob Glotzhober and I went to the Olentangy to look for them again, and we found the super rare russet-tipped clubtail, which had never been collected or documented in all of central Ohio.  No luck with the russet-tipped today, but if you go to Kenney Park to see these clubtails, be on the lookout for something that looks like the dragon pictured above, but with a brownish tip to the abdomen.

I'm super pumped- tomorrow Megan, Weston and I are headed to Shawnee- A quick two night va-cay.  I'm super pumped.

Tom

Male Blue-fronted Dancer

The male blue-fronted dancer, Argia apicalis, has an intense turquoise blue color on the head, eyes, thorax, and very tip of the abdomen.  When viewed at close range, this color is just breathtaking.  Dozens of b males and females dotted the bank of the Olentangy yesterday at Kenney Park. 

Tom

Blue-fronted Dancer, Argia apicalis, Eats

This afternoon I headed to Kenney Park to see if any of the late season clubtails were flying.  Two years ago I photographed both the arrow and russet-tipped clubtails here- and both observations were county records.  This afternoon the light was fantastic, but I didn't see any dragonflies.  The usual damselflies abounded along the shore of the Olentangy, so I turned my camera towards them.  This is a blue form female blue-fronted dancer, Argia apicalis. It isn't hard to catch a damsel with a meal- now that I have my sigma 180 mm lens and I can get high magnification images without scaring them away, I'd say that about half the time I look at them through this lens, they're gobbling up an insect.

Tom

Female Eastern Pondhawk

It's hard to believe this is the same species as yesterday's dragon, but it is.  This is a female eastern pondhawk, which looks completely different from the male.  This is one of the most easily recognizable dragonflies in Ohio, look for one near a field, river, or wetland near you.

Tom

Prince Baskettail

The Prince Baskettails were really patrolling there small territories Saturday morning on the Olentangy.  Each one cruises about 50-100 feet of stream, often near an area of water willow.  They're a great species to start practicing dragonfly in-flight photography- they are fairly large, fly fairly slow, and they predictably cruise in the same general area.

Tom

Dragon Season is Here!

For those of you that have been with me for a while, you'll remember back to the days when it was just Megan and I and we rented a home only a stone's throw from the Olentangy River. On the banks of the Olentangy, I found a passion in dragonflies and damselflies, and spent most of my free time photographing them during the summers of 2007 and 2008. I documented around two dozen species of Odonata, including three species that had never been seen before in Franklin County. All of these sightings happened in the middle of the city of Columbus, and a few surprised quite a few in the local Odonata community.

Now that we've moved, I'm not far from the river, only about a five minute bike ride or so, but it feels miles away. The distance makes a big difference, and, it's just not the same river. Here in Worthington the river has been channelized, and the habitat just isn't the same as it is a few miles downstream.

Sunday morning Megan, Weston and I went to Inniswood Metrogardens. Dragons were flying, and it was hot and sultry by 11:00 am. With the dragons flying I thought to myself, why not head back to my old stomping grounds in the afternoon? Maybe I could find a few early emerging dragonflies, maybe even a clubtail, one of my favorite groups of dragons.

I packed up my gear, drove to Kenney Park, and walked down to the river. I chose an entry point at the northern end of the park. I waded into the cold water, the river was high and moving fast- few rocks were exposed, but just enough for clubtail perches. I watched for dragons, and it didn't take long to find exactly what I was looking for. A dark, clubtail-tipped dragon cruising about two feet off the water upstream. My hunch had paid off, the dragons were flying- now I had to photograph them.

To photograph dragonflies, I use shutter priority mode on my camera- This allows me to set a super high shutter speed to stop motion. If I set the camera to ISO 400, there's enough light on a sunny day to use 1/1000 of a second. This pretty much freezes the dragonflies in flight. Focus is the next problem- sometime I use autofocus, setting the camera in Canon's ai-servo mode, and sometimes I just use manual focus. I typically end up cropping the images quite a bit. I use a telephoto zoom lens, and I've found that a 200mm focal length is about all you can use- anything longer than that and your chances of following the dragon through the viewfinder are pretty much nil!

So, what do we have here? I think it could be a midland clubtail, judging by its color, the shape of the later abdominal spots, and the arrow-like patterns on the dorsal (top) of the abdomen. This would make another new species for me on the Olentangy!

With the warm weather in Ohio this week, dragons will be flying everywhere. Get out your camera, binoculars, or a net and have fun!

Tom

Yellow-throated Warbler

Back when Megan and I lived a mere one minute walk from the Olentangy River, this was a bird that I got to know well.  When I visited my old stomping grounds on Saturday April 10th, this male yellow-throated warbler was calling incessantly from the branch tips of a towering riverside sycamore.

Super Warbler!

Tom

Urban Bullfrog

Bullfrogs and American Toads are the only anuran species I've found at Kenney Park.  In a small stream like this, I would expect to see green frogs as well, but they just aren't around.  The bullfrog is king.  This is probably North America's most resilient frog species-  they can eat just about anything and they have even been introduced to areas of the country and are now considered invasive in those places. 

Tom

Help! I've got a Thrush.

Although I haven't been widely advertising this, 2010 is the first year that I'm keeping a list of the birds that I see.  Right now I sit at 100 species, and that includes a trip to Puerto Rico.  The new cool thing to do here in Ohio is to see how quickly it takes to rack up 100 birds beginning in January, and some people get that a few weeks into the new year.

This is bird #101 for my 2010 list.  It's a thrush, but which one?  I photographed this in a Amur honeysuckle bush in Kenney Park last Saturday in Columbus.  My best guess?  A hermit thrush, judging by the reddish tail, but this bird just doesn't seem to have much of an eye ring.  Help!

Tom

When Plants go Wild

I returned to my old stomping grounds this afternoon, and to my foolishness, I was shocked to see how much more lesser celandine, Ranuncus ficaria, there was along the floodplain of the Olentangy River.  In this area alone, there were at least 30 virginia bluebell plants just two years ago.  Today?  There was ONE PLANT.  This species is such a nasty, agressive invader of floodplains, it just makes me sick.

Tom

Return to Kenney Park

It's always nice to have a warm spell during winter, and last Saturday, our January thaw was the perfect opportunity to visit one of my old stomping gounds, Kenney Park. For those of you that have been visiting this corner of cyberspace for a while, you'll remember this place. It was virtually my home for two years. I photographed the Olentangy River almost every day.

Although I can't make it back there as often as I would like, it is worth the trip, especially during the winter to see birds. And this time it didn't disappoint, as I added two new species to my 2010 list- a beautiful male yellow-bellied sapsucker and a drab yellow-rumped warbler. My purpose of the trip was bird photography, and these individuals were kind enough to oblige.





Tom