One of those species that I've wanted to see is Narrow-striped Forceptail. This clubtail is considered to be very rare in Arizona overall. However, over the past month in southeastern Arizona, Narrow-striped Forceptails have been found by Laurens Halsey in multiple ponds in Pima County within the Green Valley Area. This is an ode I didn't think I'd find myself chasing this soon, but with the parade of discoveries that Laurens and others have continued to have with the species, I wanted to get in on the sightings too. With odes, I've never chased rarities due to that fact that odes are challenging to chase. I've always been content with going after species that are challenging but more on the regularly occurring side. What Laurens has discovered with Narrow-striped Forceptails is hopefully something that will continue to happen in coming years. With the help of Laurens and Justin Jones, I went down to Green Valley in Pima County to search for Forceptails on July 25th, 2018. It didn't take me long before I got lucky. Gosh, this is a cool bug.
At one point, the Forceptail hovered and flew in close range at a slow distance. This actually allowed for me to get some up close flight shots of the clubtail.
It sat in the open for me too. This was a down-to-earth gesture by the Forceptail.
The species is very well named. Look at it's tail and the narrow stripes on it's abdomen.
I spent a good amount of time watching and studying this rare dragonfly in Green Valley before moving on in pursuit of other target odes. As this was my main target, my trip was already a big success.
My next stop was about an hour's drive away from the Forceptail spot, and that was at Empire Cienega within the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. At Empire Cienega the habitat consists of a marshy stream within a cottonwood and willow gallery. This is the perfect habitat for Malachite Darner, which was my next big target.
Malachite Darner is a striking darner. It moves quick but is a distinctive darner in our region with a bright green coloration overall. The bright green on it's thorax is interrupted with brown stripes to really make it stand out. As I started to search Empire Cienega, it didn't take me long to find that impressive Malachite Darner flying around. While photographing a Painted Damsel, I looked up to see it go by. I managed a crappy but still diagnostic flight shot of Malachite.
I watched a few, or maybe the same, Malachite Darner(s) flying around. They/it would seem to revisit several pools of water, especially one in particular. I even saw it perch once. Sadly, the lighting was bad and the photographs I got weren't good. I tried getting closer and only spooked the Darner to another perch. While I could see the general spot where it would land, I couldn't see exactly where it would land. The Darner got the best of me in three attempts. I decided to go back to the same pool of water, which had a lot of shade around it. After a few minutes of waiting, luck really hit and the Malachite Darner returned. It made a few lazy rounds over the water, and then proceeded to perch on a similarly colored plant stem below my eye level and right in front of me. It was incredible!
The sighting felt lucky when my ode mentor and great buddy Justin Jones told me that finding a Malachite Darner perched is very challenging and rare to see. This is a bug that I really wanted to see during all of the oding adventures I took part on last year. As birding got back into play, I didn't really get a chance to attempt a sighting of Malachite Darner like I wanted too, but there were several times I was in places where they were.
Seeing a lifer like this is as good as it gets. Ironically, the Malachite Darner is the 100th North American ode that I have recorded. What an epic bug to hit the century mark with.
The fun fest didn't stop at Malachite. Blue-eyed Darners were flying around too, at least, I thought Blue-eyed Darners were flying around too. No doubt some of them were Blue-eyed Darners. My next sighting would prove that I have a long ways to go in oding and have tons to learn. And that is awesome. A few Blue-eyed looking darners flew around and I happened to see them fly up and perch on branches. I snapped photos of the two that I saw do this. After photographing them for later study, I went back and looked to see that they weren't Blue-eyed Darners, but are the very similar looking Arroyo Darner! How do you tell? See how the first thoracic stripe noticeably points rearward? That is a feature of Arroyo Darner, while Blue-eyed Darner has a straight thoracic stripe. I was pumped when I figured this out later, but I had both a male and female Arroyo Darner at Empire Cienega.
Like Malachite Darner, Arroyo Darner has a limited Arizona range to southeastern Arizona.
Other than Malachite and Arroyo Darners, there were a handful of other fun odes present at the Empire Cienega location. Check these out!
Painted Damsels
Aztec Dancer
Desert Firetail
Variable Dancer
Springwater Dancer
American Rubyspot
Common Whitetail
Flame Skimmer
After looking for odes at Empire Cienega, I successfully chased a lifer Fulvous Whistling-Duck on the birding side of things that showed up in Green Valley. After some thought, I decided I wanted to get some more odes within Graham County. I would drive to Safford to spend the night so I could be near by destinations to start off the following day. My ode targets all came within Cluff Ranch Wildlife Area, and the three lifer targets I had were Blue-fronted Dancer, Eastern Amberwing, and Bleached Skimmer. Once at Safford, I talked with Justin and Justin coached me on where to look for each of these three targets. I was pumped up for the next day after talking to Justin.
I woke up in Safford on July 26th and headed for Cluff Ranch. Blue-fronted Dancer and Eastern Amberwing were to be found around a fishing lake/pond that is popular for recreation. Bleached Skimmer is close by, but at an akaline tank pond called Smith's Tank that doesn't support much ode diversity.
Desert Forktails were common at my first stop at Smith's Tank. I haven't seen this species much, so it was cool to see them in numbers.
I tried for about 40 minutes for Bleached Skimmer to start off my day at Smith's Tank. Then I went to Pond 2 at Cluff Ranch to try for Blue-fronted Dancer and Eastern Amberwing. This pond/lake was a much more pleasant place to be at than Smith's Tank. A Straw-colored Sylph started off the fun here.
Although it took awhile, I did start to see the Eastern Amberwing. This Amberwing is tiny, and is noticeably smaller than the larger but still very small Mexican Amberwing. Eastern Amberwing is new for Arizona for me, but is one I did get in Wisconsin last year. This Amberwing is identified by by it's reddish pterostigma marks (upper end of wings), and it's darker thorax with pale markings in the midst.
Eastern Amberwing and Dusky Dancer side-by-side was a cool sight. It really shows how small a dragonfly can get.
While I looked for Blue-fronted Dancers, I had other awesome odes to look at. Such as Black Setwing,
Checkered Setwing,
Mexican Amberwing,
American Rubyspot,
Gray Sanddragon,
Dusky Dancer,
and Powdered Dancer.
I went back to Smith's Tank for a second time after not being able to find Blue-fronted Dancer for awhile to try for Bleached Skimmer again. In close to an hour, I continued to not have any Bleached Skimmers. But I did have a few Marl Pennants.
Justin reminded me of the exact stretch within Pond 2 at Cluff Ranch that was best for Blue-fronted Dancer. I walked some of the stretch during my first attempt, but came with what seemed to be a better focus. Within ten minutes, I had two adult males of my most recent lifer, the Blue-fronted Dancer. Blue-fronted Dancer is a damselfly typical of the eastern United States. As it's range has a cutoff between eastern New Mexico and eastern Arizona, it is suggested the larvae of this dancer was introduced into fishing lakes and ponds during the stalking of game fish. While that is unknown, one for sure thing is that this is one striking dancer. It's bright blue thorax, dark abdomen, and bright blue ending segments make this dancer pretty darn distinctive.
After Blue-fronted Dancer, I went back to Smith's Tank for a THIRD freaking time to try for Bleached Skimmer, where I would spent another 30 minutes. The water here was nasty, stinky, muddy, and hot, but yet I was walking through it to increase my chances at Bleached Skimmer. And for a third time, I would come up empty and have to save Bleached Skimmer for another time.
Oh well, you can't get them all. Going 4 out of 5 for lifer targets on a trip was good for me, plus a bonus lifer in Arroyo Darner. My two main targets, Forceptail and Malachite Darner were enough while the others were added bonus.
The rest of my time was spent at two awesome oding locations, which were Roper Lake State Park and Dankworth Pond State Park. Odes were abundant and I enjoyed them. Most enjoyable for me was Four-spotted Pennant. By the end of the time at Roper Lake, I was given a Four-spotted Pennant show!
I even hand captured and released two of them...
Here are some other odes I saw and photographed at Roper Lake and Dankworth Pond:
Widow Skimmer
Western Pondhawk
Double-striped Bluet
Common Green Darner
This oding trip was a fun success. Thanks to Justin Jones for answering all my questions and coaching me to finding these bugs on this trip, and thanks to Laurens Halsey for finding the Narrow-striped Forceptails. I hope to get back up into the high country soon to re-attempt the higher elevation odes that I missed.
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