June 15, 2020 

Dragonflies and Damsel Flies

The last few weeks dragonflies have become much more prevalent with them skimming over the lakes, flowers and trees..  They are predators and eat mainly flying insects.  If you don't like mosquitos (and who does!) a single adult dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitos per day  They capture their prey by grabbing them with their feet.  They are expert fliers.  They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air.  

There are 5000 species of dragonflies and they, along with damselflies, belong to the order Odonata which means toothed one referring to dragonflies serrated teeth. I include three pictures of different species  of dragonflies I have seen at Fort Ridgely and one of a damselfly.  Dragonflies have 4 wings and spread them out horizontally when landed.  

Much of the info came from an article on Google from Smithsonianmag.com called 14 Fun Facts about Dragonflies on October 5, 2011 by Sarah Zielinski: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-dragonflies-96882693/ 

Some cool things about damselflies: https://natureformysoul.com/2016/06/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-damselflies/

I include a cool picture I took a couple years ago to show that dragonflies are also hunted by birds.  The female red winged blackbird actually has an owlfly in its mouth and not a dragonfly.  I was told this when I posted this picture on iNaturalist.  They said the large antenae meant it is an owlfly as dragonflies have short antenae.  I had no idea there were even owlflies but I guess another predator insect should have such a name. 

Butterflies and Moths

Many different kinds of butterflies and moths were around this week at Fort Ridgely.  Most were smaller than monarchs and to show how much smaller I will use fingers on your hand to show the approximate size of each. A monarch is about the size of all 4 fingers of your hand. held horizontally.  The butterfly in the first two pictures is the red-spotted purple.  I include 2 pictures to show how beautiful the inside and outside of its wings are.  The name comes from the red spots on the outside of its wings.  It is slightly smaller than a monarch, more like 3 fingers. 

Yesterday (Sunday) we went for a walk through the woods and saw in many places a small butterfly called the hackberry emperor.  It is not much bigger than your thumb and seemed to be following us or was everywhere we went.  It was not shy and landed on my backpack, Becky's hat and arm and even my camera.  When I got home and did some research I found that it gets its name from the fact that it lays its eggs in the hackberry tree and its larvae have to have some form of hackberry tree to eat and develop similarly to how the monarch needs some form of milkweed for its second stage.  It is also one of the few butterflies that is seldom found on flowers looking for nectar.  All butterflies have a proboscis which is a long attached straw-like device that they suck up the nectar from the flowers for their food.  This butterfly gets its sustenance from hackberry leaves and also uses its proboscis to suck up salt for their mineral needs from places like our skin, camera and backpack where sweat may accumulate.  An interesting thing is that butterflies with a long proboscis coil them up below their chin when not in use (see first picture).  Becky's comment was that it tickled when it was moving its proboscis around on her arm (second pic).  

Two other even smaller butterflies that you will see all over the park are little brown or orange skippers and light blue butterflies that are classified as either blue or azure butterflies.  They are more the size of the end of your pointer or little finger.  I include a few pictures of each.  These butterflies seldom have their wings spread open when they land,  It is sometimes hard to see the blue until they fly away. Notice the black proboscis probing into the white clover flower and the antennae on the skipper.

A good camera that you can zoom in on a butterfly can show some of these details of butterfly anatomy.  A phone camera if it is held very steady can get lots of this if you look for it.  Often I don't realize what I have until I get home and zoom in on parts of the picture.  It is also useful to have an app or place on the internet to help identify what the butterfly, bird, plant, bee, etc. is that you have photographed.  I use iNaturalist.com to do this.  I only sound knowledgeable since I have had help from this site and people who help identify what was in my pictures.  I include 3 other less common butterflies or moths that I discovered this week. They are the variegated fritillary, Virginia ctenucha moth and white spring moth.

Protective momma trumpeter swan!

I was driving to Winthrop Saturday morning on highway 19 and as I passed this little lake I saw the pair of swans and what looked like babies so I turned around and got my camera out. In the first picture the cygnets were spread out and parents were not looking at me. The second picture, as I got a little closer and they noticed me, has the cygnets close to mother and dad is totally aware of me. They are great parents to have 6 healthy babies as the average swan pair  normally only lay 5-7 eggs