The Search For Odes at Oak Creek Canyon

On June 15th, 2017, I ventured north of Phoenix to ode the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon.  This area is just north of Sedona, and West Fork is one of my favorite locations to visit in Arizona.  With towering cliffs, a healthy flowing creek, mixed conifer and oak woodlands, wildlife diversity, and scenic beauty, it is the reason why I love Oak Creek Canyon, particularly West Fork, as much as I do.  During that day on June 15th, I got to see a lot of neat odes for the first time.  They included Arizona Snaketail, Red Rock Skimmer, and Tonto Dancer.  The main ode I was after that day is called Apache Spiketail, and I didn't find any.  Well it turned out that that my visit was a little on the early side to be seeing Apache Spiketail.  Once I knew more about the fact that I went early, I've been craving the chance to go back to Oak Creek and to try my luck once again at the Apache Spiketail, as well as other odes that I had yet to see.  My great buddy, Caleb Strand, had similar ideas.  On August 3rd, Caleb and I made the trip up to the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon.  It was bound to be an epic day.  After getting there at 8:30 and after some lurking shade was about to clear out of the narrow Oak Creek Canyon, we knew that the odes were going to be upon us.  Without many clouds in the sky, we had the potential to have an awesome day.  Nothing was more exciting to us than crossing paths with the Apache Spiketail, which is a very large dragonfly that haunts an odd choice of small mountain streams and rivers despite it's small size.  Other than Spiketail, we had other chances at different lifers.  Once the sun came over the West Fork more, the day really began.  Come on the Oak Creek Canyon adventure here.  Follow Caleb, that's him way ahead!

It didn't take long for both of us to get a lifer.  Up first was this Striped Meadowhawk.  By the end of the day, times this by sixty or so!  They were everywhere, and quite ironically, it was my very first identified Meadowhawk of any sort in the field.

A turn around the bend gave Caleb another lifer, and my second occasion of seeing Tonto Dancer.  It was one I actually found for Caleb, I think the Boy walked right by it!

Within thirty minutes of oding West Fork, things got very exciting when we turned a corner...

I saw a huge dragonfly drop down in front of Caleb and it briefly started feeding in front of us.  Caleb saw it at the same time I did.  The bug had a black and yellow abdomen.  "Apache Spiketail!!!"  The Spiketail gave us a brief five second look while it came down to the creek in front of us, and then it flew within feet away from us as it headed back downstream and out of sight.  When it flew by us, it sure was loud.  After waiting in the area for 15 minutes, the Spiketail didn't come back again.  Further up the trail, we encountered more big dragons, and at one point, another Spiketail flew overhead.  It's black and yellow abdomen and thorax really stood out, even at a distance.  As this was still early in the hike, we thought chances were going to be good at getting more views of Apache Spiketail and also of what we wanted most, which was photo documentation of the incredible ode!

It was good to return to Oak Creek and have more views of the showy Red Rock Skimmer.

An ode crossing our path that I was able to spy turned out to be a lifer for the both of us, the Spotted Spreadwing!  This was only my second Spreadwing species, and spreadwings are epic in my opinion.  I want to see all of them.  Turned out this would be the first of many Spotted Spreadwings for both of us on the day.

More of the Spotted Spreadwing included many pairs in tandem.

A Blue-eyed Darner sitting creekside was a neat sight.

It wasn't long before we got Caleb one of his most wanted lifers, which was the Arizona Snaketail.  Throughout the walk, we would encounter this ode here and there.  It was understandably a big highlight for Caleb, it sure was for me when I first saw it at this location back in June.

There were plenty of the legendary Springwater "Plana" Dancers around too...

There wasn't a high amount of different species of odes around at West Fork of Oak Creek, but there were numbers of the awesome ones that we went there to see.  The day here held 15 species of odes.  But they were awesome odes.  After 3 hours flew by, we took a break and headed back upstream for another hour before taking our time and heading back.  Caleb announced a lifer I had really been wanting to see and what is the largest damselfly in our region, a Great Spreadwing!  And the Great Spreadwing was great, true to it's name.  It was my second Spreadwing lifer of the day too.  After enjoying the perched bug for a few minutes, I even decided to catch it too.

With odes, it's really interesting how things can change quickly.  After seeing 60 Striped Meadowhawks on our way up, we didn't see any on our way back down.  Damselflies were much more abundant that Dragonflies at this point.  But every now and then, we'd come up on something like this Arizona Snaketail.  This individual was cooperative for us, allowed us to take pictures, had a standoff with a pair of Sooty Dancers, and I even caught the bug.  Caleb sure got to get a good fill of this bug.

At this point, we had been oding for nearly seven hours.  The day was getting old and Oak Creek Canyon was losing it's light.  The odes were going down for the day.  Apache Spiketail was still filling the mind.  I walked slowly along the creek on our way back and checked as many creekside trees and bushes as I could for any Spiketails that could be perched.  There weren't any for us to see along the Creek at this point.  It looked as if we were going to eventually document an Apache Spiketail, we would have to come back to Oak Creek Canyon.  As we got away from the Creek and were getting close to being back in the parking area, the trail took us back through an open area with tall grass and scattered trees.  I said to Caleb, "Gosh, Apache Spiketail must be really tough.  I thought we would see more after quickly getting two, but, oh well..".  Right after I said that, Caleb saw a large ode flying in our direction.  It quickly changed directions and landed in a tree right by the trail, and right by us, as if it heard us talking.  I'm not even kidding.  Caleb started freaking out, and I knew what he saw without him even having to say it.  There was the view we wanted of Apache Spiketail all along, and miraculously, right in front of us!

After snapping a few quick pictures immediately of the Apache Spiketail, we couldn't help but crack up laughing.  It seemed as if the Spiketail actually heard us talking.  What an epic ode it is.  Despite it's large size, it favors small mountain streams and rivers throughout it's range of Arizona, some of New Mexico and Utah, and much of Mexico.  It is by far the largest ode that has been documented at Oak Creek Canyon.  It is also my favorite ode that I have seen in Arizona so far, and it would take a lot for this one to be topped!

After staring at this epic bug for a few minutes, we decided to have a little fun.  I reached up at the Spiketail and caught it, and it joined the Arizona Snaketail and Great Spreadwing for odes I had hand caught during the day.   The Spiketail was up high, but luckily, it didn't fly as I tilted the tree branch down slightly which allowed me to catch it.  A large ode certainly felt large, and right when I caught the Spiketail, it gave me a decent bite on the finger.  It actually stung at little!  People walking by were shocked I caught it.  Caleb and I started taking turns at holding the dragonfly.  When I was holding it, it was hard to not get caught up in the moment.  A group of people were walking down the trail, and I wanted to show them the Spiketail.  I didn't fully realize they were teenage girls due to how excited I was to show off the ode.  What I got was a scream of terror from the girls, "EWWWW, THAT IS GROSS!!   GET IT AWAY FROM US!!!"  Two of the girls ran away as fast as they could.  I wasn't even very close to them and it wasn't as if I was holding it right in their face.  One girl started to walk away, but then she turned around and looked at the Spiketail after I mentioned how cool it was.  She seemed to appreciate it a little bit, and perhaps she's thinking about buying her first oding kit as I write.  Here's Caleb and I with the find of the day, and afterwords, we released the Spiketail, who flew off as strong as ever.

We walked away from West Fork oding as accomplished, pumped up men.  But wait, we took one more look over a bridge crossing Oak Creek right by the parking lot.  We saw two Riffle Darners in tandem moving slowly over the creek.  We walking into the Creek one more time, and we were rewarded with a great view of the pair perched.  This was another one of Caleb's lifers on the day, and it was a great ending to Oak Creek after we thought Spiketail was a for sure ending.

After Oak Creek, we went to Cornville Grasslands near Cottonwood to search out Cassin's Sparrows.  We got the sparrows and ironically, I got a very overdue ode lifer.  It was this female Variegated Meadowhawk!  It came even after I joked about finding it here while looking for the sparrows.  After seeing no Meadowhawks ever, I saw two species in one day.  Pretty cool.

We made one last stop at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.  Walking around three ponds there produced many birds and a variety of odes we didn't see at Oak Creek.  Checkered Setwings have a good population at Dead Horse, but we failed to find any.  The day went down as a top favorite in my oding history.  

Lifers for Me, Tommy:  Apache Spiketail, Great Spreadwing, Spotted Spreadwing, Striped Meadowhawk, Variegated Meadowhawk

Lifers for Caleb:  Apache Spiketail, Northern Bluet, Arizona Snaketail, Spotted Spreadwing, Striped Meadowhawk, Riffle Darner, Tonto Dancer.

To close, here's a small report and summary I wrote to our Arizona Ode Facebook Group:

"Yesterday on August 3rd, Caleb Strand and I searched for odes extensively at the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon.  This location is north of Sedona and is one of my favorite places in Arizona.  We had a handful of exciting odes that we were hoping to see, especially Apache Spiketail.  Striped Meadowhawk, Spotted Spreadwing, Arizona Snaketail, Tonto Dancer, and Riffle Darner were some of the other odes we were really hoping to see.   We were blessed and got to see all that we were wanting to see!  Caleb added 6 lifers and I added 4.  The 15 species of Odes that we encountered were:  Canyon Rubyspot, Great Spreadwing, Spotted Spreadwing, Sooty Dancer, Springwater Dancer, Tonto Dancer, Northern Bluet, Arroyo Bluet, Riffle Darner, Blue-eyed Darner, Arizona Snaketail, Apache Spiketail, Flame Skimmer, Red Rock Skimmer, and Striped Meadowhawk.  

We covered over 2 miles of walking straight through Oak Creek's West Fork adjacent to the trail.  Striped Meadowhawks were abundant, as we probably had 50-60 individuals, and Spotted Spreadwings were common too, with about 40 individuals.  Canyon Rubyspot, Sooty Dancer, Springwater Dancer, Tonto Dancer, and Riffle Darner were plentiful.  Decent numbers fell into Northern and Arroyo Bluets, Blue-eyed Darner, Arizona Snaketail, and Red Rock Skimmer.  Singles included Great Spreadwing and Flame Skimmer.  Our biggest highlight, the Apache Spiketail, rewarded us with it's presence in the form of 4 individuals.  The first two individuals were along the first half-mile of the West Fork Trail once it parallels Oak Creek and the second two were before that point as we were headed out later in the afternoon, which were away from the Creek and at the edges of open grassy areas.  A perched Spiketail led to a hand-caught Spiketail, and seeing this huge ode up close was epic.  As we held the dragon and when it would try to break free, it felt no different than a vibrating cell phone!  I got caught up in the moment big time when I decided to show a group of people my hand catch in an attempt to show how cool these bugs are.  It didn't cross my mind that it was a group of teenage girls, I was just glad to show someone.  As a result, I got a "EWWW!!! That's gross, get it away from us".  Two of the girls ran away as fast as they could, and one who was borderline creeped out of the Spiketail turned around and looked.  She seemed a little interested after the initial shock.  The Spiketail flew away as strong as ever after we let it go.  This is probably my favorite Arizona ode.

We also hand-caught and studied Arizona Snaketail, and both Spotted and Great Spreadwings up close.  The West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon is worth the time.  You won't get a huge diversity of odes there that some locations give, but I can promise that is is quality over quantity.  West Fork is accessed by taking the West Fork Trail # 108 along Oak Creek for as long as you please.  The trail itself is 3.5 miles long.  After the maintained trail ends, one could still hike further into Oak Creek.  This is a popular trail, and parking at the trailhead costs 10 bucks".