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| Yeah. I was tired. Photo courtesy of Caleb! |
As with most days of Oding, the activity picked up as time went on. One of the first odes we saw was this Canyon Rubyspot.
Things got exciting quickly when Caleb said he had a few Plateau Dragonlets. This was my first ode lifer of the day, and this is probably the smallest dragonfly in our region. Plateau Dragonlets are freaking tiny!
Dusky and Sooty Dancers were very common, and Kiowa Dancer was pretty numerous too. In midst of them we were hoping to find the much rarer Tezpi Dancer.
Sooty Dancer
Dusky Dancer
Kiowa Dancer
Every creek bend meant potential for something else. Caleb and I were searching and searching for limited Arizona odes with intensity such as Western River Cruiser, Tezpi Dancer, Swift Setwing, and the scarce in United States Desert Shadowdamsel. In the early stages of our search, things got epic when Caleb spied one of our main targets, a Western River Cruiser. This species is very limited in it's Arizona range, and Lower Eagle Creek is one of the only locations it can be seen at in Arizona. This species is more plentiful along the West Coast states. Caleb and I were content with just one. The River Cruiser cruised up and down Eagle Creek within a 50-70 foot radius over a span of 10 minutes. Luckily, we were able to get some diagnostic photographs of this cool ode.
After enjoying the rarity in the Western River Cruiser for a considerable amount of time, we were back to searching and searching. But not after one final look..
Up next was a close up encounter with one of many Pale-faced Clubskimmers that we saw throughout the hiking length.
Things were exciting early, and the sun wasn't even fully out yet. Caleb kept saying, "It's gonna keep getting better and better, Tommy!" And he couldn't have been more spot-on.
Early on, between the sightings of the Dragonlets and the River Cruiser, Caleb got me on two more lifers. One was the tiny Arroyo Bluet which I had brief looks at, and the other was the biggest ode in our region, the Giant Darner. With it's huge size and bended abdomen in flight, the Giant Darner is distinctive, and extremely impressive. Although the looks were brief, they were awesome. Going back to what Caleb said about increased productivity as the day progressed, things got better with those two lifers. Especially that huge and impressive Giant Darner! We ended up having 7-8 of the huge things. At one point, we saw a Giant Darner chase off a Common Green Darner. The Common Green Darner, one that I commonly have thought of as being huge, now seemed like a Dragonlet in comparison with it's huge cousin. Caleb and I watched these huge odes in amazement while standing knees-deep in Eagle Creek.
The Giant Darners would cruise above Eagle rather slowly for the most part, but when they would chase other dragons, gosh, their speed was impressive..
Familiar Bluet and Mexican Forktails were a few of the other odes present throughout the search as we kept heading north of Eagle Creek. We searched for the elusive Desert Shadowdamsel on our way up without luck.
At the halfway point and as we were almost as north as we could go, we gave our oding mentor and ode expert, Justin Jones, a call. He gave us some awesome tips on finding things, especially for the elusive Desert Shadowdamsel, which was our biggest target of the day and like I mentioned earlier, can only be found in a few Arizona locations for it's entire range in the United States. That makes this a highly wanted ode.
For the hardcore birder that I am, the journey had it's birds too. Shockingly, we missed our main bird target, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Despite the nickname of "Cuckoo City" that Justin has given Eagle Creek, Caleb and I couldn't land one of them. Perhaps they are on the nest right now and aren't vocal at all. I did get two Greenlee County additions, Zone-tailed Hawk and a very unexpected female Broad-billed Hummingbird. 46 species of birds called the segment of Lower Eagle Creek that we hiked, home.
Broad-billed Hummingbird! Female. Considered to be rare in Greenlee County. However, with the limited birding coverage that Greenlee County receives, who know's it's true status.
Canyon Wren
Common Black Hawk
Near this halfway point, we landed another lifer for odes, a Serpent Ringtail. The Ringtail flew by me once as Caleb was ahead of me. After telling him about the ode, we went back and saw it fly by once again. Before it flew, Caleb caught a glimpse of it sitting on a stick over Eagle. We didn't manage to see it any further or any more of it's species during the day, yet alone get a photograph. Darn! But other odes were plentiful and much more photogenic near the Ringtail spot.
Blue Dasher
Western Pondhawk
Desert Firetail
We began to seriously look for the Desert Shadowdamsel. This ode is appropriately named. And it's very bizarrely awesome too. The Desert Shadowdamsel is active during the crepuscular times of the day, dawn and dusk. It is also active during heavy overcast days or even light rains. During the middle of the day, the Shadowdamsel hides in dense vegetation within shade created by shady stands of trees near water source or overhanging cliffs. This dense vegetation includes flood debris against trees or within cavities of root tangles of fallen trees. Justin gave Caleb and I specific tips on finding these strange but epic odes, and we followed those tips. After we found some sections with good habitats, we began searching. At one point, we found a shady area with a few clusters of good habitat. With sticks in both of our hands, we started hitting the sticks up against the debris clustered up at the base of trees where permanent shade was created. Hitting the sticks throughout the debris will cause the Shadowdamsel to move, as their day hangout consists of oddly perching and hiding within this dense debris. I chose one stack and Caleb choose the other. Caleb's choice prevailed, and with a statement of shock, he announced he had the epic Desert Shadowdamsel. Seconds later, I had my eyes on it too. Gosh, Caleb is clutch.
Desert Shadowdamsel is very unique in it's appearance, and is a striking ode. This one here was an adult male, and while they can congregate in numbers of up to 15 (Justin's numbers) in one clump of debris, this one adult male was solo as far as we knew. Because of this species' secretive nature, it's hard to know for sure about it's true status. Heck, it wasn't even found in Arizona and the U.S. until the 1990's (Rich Bailowitz, Doug Danforth, Sandy Upson)! Stuff that is tough to find like this is what makes wildlife-related hobbies a freaking blast. Caleb and I enjoyed this ode for a good amount of time until we lost track of it. At one point, Caleb even caught it and we studied it at a close range. When it would fly, it would go a few inches between perches, certainly a unique behavior.
After seeing our first Desert Shadowdamsel, I then got a much better look at one of my lifers, which was Arroyo Bluet. And this one let me get much better photos of it too, while the other ones were blurry. Many bluets look annoyingly similar, but the high amount of black on this one and the tiny size of this bluet set it apart from other bluets that may be around.
I was excited to find another lifer and one that I have had my eyes out for for awhile now, the Amethyst Dancer! This time, I beat Caleb to the punch and I actually was the first to spy one of my lifers. The reddish coloration on this dancer is quite distinctive.
Before we had more Shadowdamsel habitat to look for more Shadowdamsels, we stopped to enjoy two herds of Bighorn Sheep on the cliffs overlooking the narrow canyon where Eagle Creek flowed through. It was amazing to have a wild experience like this with these sheep after seeing ones in Clifton that acted very tame towards people. These ones were quite the cliff climbers! In midst of the herd were rams, adult females (what do they call them?), and calves.
We also saw this cool butterfly, which was a lifer. This is a Empress Leilia.
After enjoying the sheep and more, it was back to looking for more odes as well as search for Yellow-billed Cuckoos. We were in disbelief that we didn't hear or see any freaking cuckoos. Justin will have 4 pairs when he comes here! Caleb then found a great shady area and debris clumps over a still and small pond that looked good for Shadowdamsel. He repeated the process of what he did the first time, and he started to call me over. This time, he had a female Desert Shadowdamsel.
With some more debris checking, Caleb detected four more Desert Shadowdamsels. There were two adult males, a young male, and two adult females. I would say that we did a really good job with this species during our exploration!
Powdered Dancer
I'll save a great ode for last to close out this post. Prior to this search at Eagle Creek, I had only seen one Fiery-eyed Dancer during my times looking at odes. Well, on this search, Caleb and I saw 25-30 individuals. They were quite common at Eagle Creek, and each one of them was put there for us to enjoy. This is one of my favorite odes, and it was great to see them in numbers!
Eagle Creek is one I want to visit a lot more, both for birding and oding. Up next on Tommy D's Sidetracks, Caleb and I had one more big stop for the trip on our way back, the epic Roper Lake State Park. There would be a few more good odes awaiting us there...
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