Many people in the United States were excited to view yesterday’s solar eclipse. I too paused for a few moments in the afternoon to view the eclipse through solar glasses that I had obtained last week during a visit to the Air and Space Museum in the Washington D.C. area.
However, I must confess that I was more excited earlier in the day when I had multiple encounters with Uhler’s Sundragons (Helocordulia uhleri), the first dragonflies that I have been able to photograph in 2024. (Some of you may recall that I searched for dragonflies last week and think that I saw one flying over a stream. However, I did not get a photo of the dragonfly, so for me that first sighting does not really “count.)
I spent several hours yesterday looking carefully at the vegetation along a creek in Prince William County, Virginia where I had spotted Uhler’s Sundragons in previous years. This species appears in limited locations in the early spring and is usually gone by early May. Unlike many of the dragonflies that I will see during the summer that are habitat generalists, Uhler’s Sundragons require a specific kind of habitat, usually a mountain stream. According to the Dragonflies of Northern Virginia website, “Uhler’s need clean, small to medium, rocky forest streams with gravelly and/or sandy substrate, and a decent flow.”
I was fortunate to be able to photograph both female and male Uhler’s Sundragons. I have alternated genders in the photos below, with the females in the odd-numbered images and the males in the even ones. One of the ways to tell the genders apart is to look at the tips of the abdomens (the “tails”) and you can see that the terminal appendages are different. The lower portion of the abdomens of the males is also somewhat enlarged, as you can see in some of the photos.
Dragonflies perch in many different ways. Some species perch horizontally and some hang vertically. Uhler’s Sundragons most often perch at an angle, as shown in the first and last photos, though sometimes they may hang vertically from the vegetation.
The dragonfly season has now opened and I look forward to many more encounters with these amazingly beautiful aerial acrobatic insects that have a magical appeal for me.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 