Dragonfly Walks

Andy and I led two dragonfly walks lately that were jointly sponsored by the Forest Society and Ausbon-Sargent Land Preservation Trust. The first was at an easement property protected by ASLPT, and it was an overcast day, threatening rain. We didn't have a rain date set (live and learn, I guess) so we just had to make the best of it with 35 people arriving to see dragonflies that, oh by the way, don't like to come out unless its sunny! When we arrived we tried our best to hunt up a few dragons for show and did manage to catch one or two small and shabby looking ones before the crowds arrived. There were numerous families with young kids, so we talked up all the dreadfully juicy details of dragonfly biology (crawling predatory nymphs, mosquito gorge-fests, eyes with 30,000 lenses and toothy jaws to catch prey in mid-air... that kind of stuff) and then passed out the nets for people to try catching (or finding, more accurately) dragonflies themselves. There was precious little to see... just a few fairly inconspicuous damselflies and only two types of actual dragonfly. Luckily one of them was a bright red meadowhawk that was at least very striking. Amazingly, people had a really good time on the walk... maybe because they didn't know what they'd actually missed if it had been a sunny day, but more likely because it's just great to be outside and learning new things, swinging a net to see what sort of bio-treasures you can find.

The second dragonfly walk was picture-perfect. Of course it was! We had a rain date all set this time. We held it at the Langenau Forest in Wilmot, which is one of our NH Dragonfly Survey sites so we're pretty familiar with it. We had only 20 participants on this walk, and only one child, so it was a different dynamic entirely. With the sunny day there were plenty of large and flashy darners to be caught, and many participants did catch them too... impressive since darners are not easy to grab. We found about a dozen different species between the spreadwings, darners, bluets, meadowhawks, and skimmers buzzing around the small pond at Langenau.

Can you spot the dragonfly?

We're hoping to lead another dragonfly adventure with Aiden's kindergarten class once it starts up again this fall. We're learning that very few people have actually seen a dragonfly up really close, and kids are especially amazed when they get to hold a dragonfly before it flies away. It's definitely fun to see their eyes pop with a big dragon sitting on their finger prepping his wings for flight!