Oding at the Gila River via Base and Meridian Wildlife Area

On June 17th, 2017, Caleb Strand and I joined forces and oded for several hours at the Gila River via the Base and Meridian Wildlife Area.  We covered a good amount of ground, where we had big highlights of both of our lifer Comanche Skimmers and also a good number of Neotropical Bluets.  The latter have been very rare in Arizona, but some were blown into Arizona last year from Hurricane Newton.  This year there have been many along this stretch in Arizona, were in years and history past there have only been a few records in Arizona in total.  It will be interesting to see how this species pans out in the future.  Caleb and I found them further west than they have ever been found before.  Interestingly, Caleb pointed out that the good habitat we were finding them along the Gila River continues for another 5 miles west.  The Comanche Skimmer was one of two ode lifers for me, as the other was a Spot-winged Glider that was spied by Caleb.  So far, the Spot-winged remains to be the only ode I haven't gotten a picture of yet out of my ode list that has reached 44 species in my first three weeks of this new thing.  For the day along the Gila River with Caleb, we tallied 20 different species of odes, most of which were in very good numbers.  The Comanche Skimmer was a new ode for the stretch of Gila River that we covered.  Below are some of the odes I was able to photograph:

Neotropical Bluets (increasing drastically and in tandem as well)

Comanche Skimmer (one of two individuals that Caleb and I saw, Caleb found both of them because he's great)

Comanche Skimmer (lower ode) with Blue Dasher

White-belted Ringtail

Familiar Bluet

Kiowa Dancer

Total list of Odes observed by Caleb Strand and Tommy DeBardeleben:

American Rubyspot, Kiowa Dancer, Powdered Dancer, Blue-ringed Dancer, Dusky Dancer, Familiar Bluet, Neotropical Bluet, Rambur's Forktail, Common Green Darner, White-belted Ringtail, Red-tailed Pennant, Western Pondhawk, Comanche Skimmer, Flame Skimmer, Blue Dasher, Wandering Glider, Spot-winged Glider, Mexican Amberwing, Black Saddlebags, and Red Saddlebags.