The Common Sanddragon is one of the dragonfly species in the Algonquin Park field that is not found in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. A member of the clubtail family, it is well-marked with a mottled green and brown thorax reminiscent of a Harlequin Darner and uniquely-shaped markings down the length of the abdomen to segment 7: they look like goblets in the male, and start out as goblet-shaped in the female but gradually lose the stem. Their legs are very short for a dragonfly, and mature males have green eyes while females have gray or brown eyes. The appendages in both sexes are pale, and they are the only dragonfly in our region which has pale appendages, a mottled thorax, and brown spots at the base of each wing. Its larvae live in rivers, lakes, and streams with sandy bottoms, and due to its short legs, the adults perch horizontally on the sandy beaches and banks of its rivers rather than hanging from trees or in the vegetation. At the time of the printing of the first edition of the Algonquin field guide, it had not been recorded within the park and was only known from a few sites in Peterborough County and a single record from Windsor in Ontario’s deep south.
Then this dragonfly was discovered by a naturalist in 2016 along the Desert River (Rivière Désert) north of Maniwaki in Quebec. Over the next four years, records from the same river started popping up on iNaturalist: Chris Traynor saw these records, and made the two-hour drive to see them on July 18, 2020, contributing to the growing number of records on iNaturalist. He found them again in an area nearby on July 23, 2022. He told me that the sandy area where he’d seen it was an easy walk, and asked me earlier this season if I wanted to go one weekend to see them. I was of course interested – this critically imperiled dragonfly would be a lifer, and a handsome one at that. We decided to go on August 5, 2023, a day that turned out to be sunny and hot with blue skies overhead.
It took us about two hours to reach the boundary of La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve just beyond Grand-Remous along Highway 117. We turned onto a narrow dirt road which reminded me of cottage country, the vegetation looking marvelously enticing for all sorts of interesting insect critters. When I noticed several large dragonflies flying by the windshield I suggested that we stop and take a look. Chris happily complied, parking the car at a wider spot where a single-lane trail intersected our road. This turned out to be a wonderful idea as there were a number of darners flying high overhead or zipping up and down the road at shoulder height. We got out our nets, and without too much difficulty, caught a few and examined them.
The first one that I pulled out of my net was a Variable Darner. This was an exciting find as I have never seen one so close to home before – I’ve only seen them in Alberta and southern Ontario. The stripe on its thorax was broken, which is the field mark gives this species its name: in the western part of its range the stripes are thin and straight (or slightly irregular), while in the eastern part of its range the stripes are broken into two spots. This was the first time I’d seen one with two small spots instead of a single thin line – the one I’d seen at my dad’s trailer in 2014 had a thin stripe that was pinched in the middle, resembling a tall, narrow “B”.
The next one that I caught was also a Variable Darner, and I heard Chris say that he’d caught a Black-tipped Darner! This is a species that is easier to find on the Quebec side of the river as well. It was fantastic to discover two species flying here, and we saw a third, a male Shadow Darner hanging in the deep shadows of a small evergreen tree.
Feeling optimistic after these discoveries we continued on our way. Then we came to an intersection where we saw so many large dragonflies flying around that we stopped again to try to identify them. It took us a little while longer, but this time I caught two Variable Darners and a Black-tipped Darner.
We got back in the car and turned down a narrow track that led to the river. We drove by so many dragonflies that we joked about sticking our nets out the windows to see how many we could catch. We did stop where the road widened a bit to swing the net at some of them, only I became distracted by a Green Comma that kept following me – it landed on my net, and then on my arm!
In the meantime Chris was busy watching the dragonflies waiting for the opportunity to strike. One came within reach, and after it flew by he neatly caught it with a backswing! Even more astonishing (to me, anyway, as I can’t fathom that kind of accuracy!) than this back-handed catch was what he caught – not a darner, but a Twin-spotted Spiketail! This was a species neither of us was expecting as we’re both used to seeing them patrolling over streams and narrow waterways rather than narrow dirt roads!
Finally we reached the river at the end of the road. We got out, pushed our way through a bit of vegetation, then found ourselves on a narrow sandy beach with a jumble of huge boulders at one end, jutting out into the water. Chris began examining the sand for small clubtails while I checked every rock and boulder sticking out of the water.
The only dragon we found was a lone Dragonhunter guarding the beach.
This massive black and yellow dragonfly has a line of thin yellow streaks running down the length of its abdomen, ending with a triangle on segment 8, a relatively small club, long hindlegs, and a small head. It is the largest clubtail in North America, and those found in the southern portion of its range are larger than those found in the north – those living in Florida must be monsters! It flew from rock to beach to rock, chasing after other dragonflies that flew within its territory, though thankfully it never caught one.
A couple of Powdered Dancers kept me company as I kept an eye out for sanddragons, and this blue one looked pretty against the grays and rusty-reds of the rocks in the background.
Unable to locate any Common Sanddragons, Chris quickly checked the next suitable sandy area up the river and came back with the same result: they were gone. Although this species is said to fly from early July to late August in the Algonquin field guide, it appeared we were too late in the season for this colony. It was disappointing not to find our target species, but we were in a beautiful spot, and there were many other species still flying that would could see!
Not to be deterred, we left the river and hiked across the wooden bridge to check the trail there – after consulting Google maps, Chris thought there was another spot about a kilometer away where we could get down to the river. The trail was easy to walk along, bright and well-vegetated, so there were lots of butterflies to look at along the way…we saw Aphrodite and Great-spangled Fritillaries and a few more Green Commas.
I was surprised that I didn’t see any skimmers or damselflies in the vegetation. This may be due to the time of the year – it was getting too late for most of the whitefaces and Four-spotted Skimmers – but is more likely due to the habitat. Most damselflies and common skimmers breed in ponds, marshes, small lakes, or small streams, and the only water nearby appeared to be the Desert River, a large, rocky river with several rapids. It was getting too late for most emeralds, who needed calmer waters (forest streams, lakes, bogs, swamps and fens), but if we were lucky we might see some clubtails hunting away from their breeding habitats.
We were – it was Chris who found a gorgeous Black-shouldered Spinyleg resting on a fern. This species breeds in a variety of lakes and rivers, finding rocky rivers and lakes more appealing in the northern part of its range (and southern Quebec looks to be right at the northern edge of its range in the Paulson field guide). The sides of the thorax are almost entirely pale due to the lack of darker stripes, and the top is marked by a pale capital “I” centered between two small pale ovals. Like the Dragonhunter, its hindlegs are very long, and are marked with visible long spines interspersed between several shorter spines. It has a modest club with the yellow markings on top of the abdomen extending all the way down to the tip of the abdomen.
Next we found a Dragonhunter hunting from the vegetation overhanging the trail. Unlike the Black-shouldered Spinyleg, it seemed to favour perches that seemed ridiculously small for its size.
After about a kilometer, we turned down a much narrower side trail. There was very little sun as the trees formed a canopy above the trail. As we went along the trail got narrower and narrower until it petered out altogether. We weren’t sure how far it was to the river and didn’t want to bushwhack our way through, so we turned around. We found the same Dragonhunter again, sitting on a different perch, as well as a few Black-tipped Darners flying in to land in the bare branches of a shrub.
From there we headed south to Kazabazua, making one unproductive stop along highway 117 shortly after leaving the La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve where we checked out another fast-flowing creek. Unfortunately the water levels were too high to show any of the exposed rocks Chris remembered from his previous trip.
The spot in Kazabazua was much different. Kazabazua River is a slower moving stream with no banks and very few rocks. We were able to drive right up to it, proceeding along a dubious track that ended right at the water. Here we found a swarm of darners flying above the clearing where we parked, and I netted one to see what it was. It was a Canada Darner, our fourth darner species of the day!
After releasing the darner I made my way to the stream, which was populated by a healthy number of Ebony Jewelwings. Chris had had Zebra Clubtails here before, and that was our chief target for the trip. We waited by the water, watching a few dragonflies zooming up and down the river only a few inches above the water. One or two clung to the banks of the river on regular patrols, skimming over and under the branches that hung over the water, and these were the dull brown of the Boyeria darners – the Fawn and Ocellated Darners that behave more like Stream Cruisers in the proper habitat. However, instead of hanging up in the vegetation and allowing us dragon-hunters a good look at them, they much prefer to try to oviposit in the legs of dragon-hunters wading in their creeks with their needle-like appendages!
I was elated when I saw a pair of brown darners in a mating wheel fly up into the vegetation beside me, as I don’t have any photos of either of these two look-alike species perching naturally. I saw where they landed with my binoculars…then, when I raised my camera to where I thought they were, they were gone. I looked for a couple of minutes with both my binoculars and camera and was thoroughly disappointed that I couldn’t find them in the shrub.
My disappointed evaporated when Chris noted that there were at least two black and yellow clubtails cruising up and down the river as well. We tried placing one or two branches in the water to serve as perches, but couldn’t get them out far enough to attract their attention. It took a while, but one finally landed…in the shrubs on the bank directly across from the river! It was a reach even with the 83x zoom of my Nikon Coolpix P900, but I got a few decent shots showing the uniquely ringed abdomen, the large club, the bold stripes on the thorax, and the black facial markings. It’s always great to see these well-named clubtails, even if we had to gaze at them from afar.
I had a fabulous time with Chris exploring parts of Quebec where I’d never been. It was the furthest north from Ottawa I’d ever been dragon-hunting, and although we were still in the southern part of the province, it made me wonder just how far north the roads ventured, how long it would take it would take to reach their end… and just what species lived in those vast, uninhabited reaches.
The Pathless Wood 