Dragon-hunting on the Long Weekend: Part I

Widow Skimmer

On June 30th I met up with Chris Lewis, Bob Bracken and Mike Tate to look for odonates in a few spots west of Ottawa. In an outing very similar to last year’s, we spent some time along the Mississippi River at Blakeney Rapids, Pakenham, and Morris Island. This time, however, we started our morning out at the beautiful little park along the Blakeney Rapids. We were hoping to find some large river clubtails along the shore and on the rocks out in the rapids, but the water was very high and moving so quickly through the rapids that there weren’t any exposed rocks for them to perch on. We found only two dragonflies in the park, a female Eastern Pondhawk and a mystery ode that was hanging out in the vegetation next to a small clearing; the mystery ode flew up out of the grass and into the tree tops so quickly that I wasn’t even able to tell what type of dragonfly it was.