Damselflies at Hurdman

Stream Bluet

When I went to Hurdman last week, I was looking for odonates as well as birds. They are beginning to emerge now that the warm weather has arrived, and on Monday, June 2nd I saw a few Eastern Forktails as well as a Racket-tailed Emerald. Then, while watching the river from a shady spot, a jewelwing species startled me by flying right toward my face; I didn’t realize it was a damselfly at first and thought it was a wasp! For some reason, the first time I see a jewelwing in flight each season, the fluttering all-dark wings confuse me into thinking it is a different type of insect entirely. By the time I realized what it was, it had vanished. Given the entirely black wings, it was likely an Ebony Jewelwing, a species I’ve only seen at Hurdman once before.