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Posts Tagged ‘Selys’s Sundragon dragonfly’

Selys’s Sundragon—first 2023 dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2023| 8 Comments »

Yesterday was an unusually warm spring day, with temperatures soaring to 82 degrees (28 C). I suspected that I might find some early season dragonflies and I was right. Last week I saw my first dragonfly of 2023, but it does not really count for me, because I was not able to get a photograph of it.

My first “official” dragonfly of 2023 turned out to be an uncommon one, a Selys’s Sundragon (Helocordulia selysii). According to the Maryland Biodiversity Project, “Selys’s Sundragon is an uncommon, early-season corduliid which breeds in small streams in wooded areas through much of the southeast.” Corduliidae, also known as the emeralds, emerald dragonflies, or green-eyed skimmers, is the family of dragonflies to which the Selys’s Sundragons belong.

As far as I can recall, I have seen this species only twice in the past, both times in 2021. Check my 16 April 2021 blog posting entitled Selys’s Sundragon Dragonfly for details about my first encounter, including some photos that compare the Selys’s Sundragon with the very similar-looking Uhler’s Sundragon.

As many of you know, dragonflies are my favorite subjects to photograph during the warmer months. There is something almost magical about this beautiful aerial acrobats that inspires me. I love the challenge of spotting and photographing these tiny creatures—the Selys’s Sundragon in these photos, for example, is only about 1.7 inches (43 mm) in length.

During the summer, many common dragonfly species can be seen in a variety of habitats, but the early season dragonflies tend to be habitat specialists and have very brief flight season, often less than a month. For that reason, I usually try to go out with my camera as often as I can during the month of April.

Selys's Sundragon

Selys's Sundragon

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Sundragons in May

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , on May 8, 2021| 14 Comments »

Almost a month ago, fellow dragonfly enthusiast Walter Sanford spotted a Selys’s Sundragon dragonfly (Helocordulia selysii), the first time that one had been spotted in Prince William County, Virginia where we were searching for dragonflies. This is an early spring dragonfly that is quite uncommon and we were both happy to get shots of it, though as I noted in my blog posting about the encounter, we did not realize until after the fact that this was a new discovery—we thought that it was a Uhler’s Sundraagon, a closely related species that I had previously seen at that location.

Whenever I encounter a brand new species in a location, I wonder if it is a one-off sighting, a vagrant who has wandered out of its normal territory, or if perhaps there is an established population. I may have gotten a partial answer to that question on Thursday when I spotted several Selys’s Sundragons a couple of miles upstream on the same creek where Walter made his initial discovery.

I managed to photograph two of these beautiful dragonflies while they perched on interrupted ferns that were growing in abundance in the area, including the dragonfly featured in the first two photos. The markings on the dragonfly’s body were quite distinctive and unfamiliar to me, given that this was the first time that I had seen this species at close range. Whenever I am out in the field, I tend not to worry about identification of my subjects and instead focus on getting the best shots that I can—I can sort things out when I get home and pull up the images on my computer screen.

A short time later, I also was able to capture some in-flight images of a Selys’s Sundragon when he cooperated for me by hovering a bit over the water. That made things marginally easier, but it is still a challenge to focus on a moving subject that is only 1.6 inches (40 mm) in length. Perhaps it is my imagination, but the dragonfly in the final photo seems to be glancing up at me, as though he was wondering if we were done yet with the photo shoot.

So, it looks like we may have at least a small established population of Selys’s Sundragons in this county. What is the flight season for the species? Walter and I were recently joking about that—as Walter pointed out, we are the baseline. We know that the season for this species in our area lasts at least from 13 April, when Walter had his initial sighting, to 6 May, when I took these photos. According to available information, the flight season for this species in our home state of Virginia lasts from 17 March to 23 May.

I hope to be able to make a return trip to this location to add another data point (and hopefully some new photos) to our information about this species or maybe some additional dragonflies are waiting to be discovered.

Selys's Sundragon

Selys's Sundragon

Selys's Sundragon

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Selys’s Sundragon dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2021| 24 Comments »

Normally when I photograph a new species of dragonfly I am immediately ecstatic, but that was not the case on Tuesday. After a long day of searching for Uhler’s Sundragons (Helocordulia uhleri) in Prince William County with fellow dragonfly enthusiast Walter Sanford, we were excited when we finally spotted a few of them. It had been an overcast day and it was only when the sun came out after noon that the dragonflies began to appear. Walter was thrilled, but my excitement was a little more muted, because I had photographed this species the previous week—check out my posting First dragonflies of the season for details and photos of my adventures that day.

After a while, Walter noted to me that all of the Uhler’s Sundragons that he had seen so far were female and that he hoped he would see a male. This may sound a little strange, but with some species of dragonflies, the females hang out in a separate area from the males until they are ready to mate, so you do not always see the genders intermixed.

I was wandering around the area a bit, as I am prone to do, when Walter called out to me that he had found a male. I rushed over and managed to get some shots of the specimen, including the first two images below. As it turns out, that was the only male that we saw all day.

The following day, Walter sent me an excited Facebook message informing me that the male dragonfly that we had both photographed was not a Uhler’s Sundragon, but was a Selys’s Sundragon (Helocordulia selysii), a similar species that neither of us had ever seen before. Walter did a records search and it looks the species had never before been documented in Prince William County. Finally I was ecstatic.

How did we not notice immediately that this was a different species? One of the primary differences between the species is that Uhler’s Sundragons have amber-colored markings mixed with dark ones at the base of their wings, while Selys’s Sundragons have only the dark markings. Given the small size of these dragonflies, these differences are hard to spot in the field, but are much easier to see when reviewing images afterwards.

For comparison purposes, I have included a photo of a male Uhler’s Sundragon that I photographed last week. If you look carefully, you can see the amber-colored markings in the final photo that are absent in the first two photos.

You may also notice that there is a spider on the branch in the final photo that appears to be reaching down and tapping the dragonfly on the “shoulder.” In this scenario, I am not sure which species would be the predator and which would be the prey. I have documented several cases in which dragonflies have been caught in spiderwebs and also a case when a jumping spider took down a much larger dragonfly (see my 2014 posting Spider captures dragonfly—the story for a fascinating series of images).

If you would like to see Walter’s account of our encounter with the Selys’s Sundragon, check out his blog posting today entitled Selys’s Sundragon dragonfly (male).

Sely's Sundragon

Selys’s Sundragon, 13 April 2021

Sely's Sundragon

Selys’s Sundragon, 13 April 2021

Uhler's Sundragon

Uhler’s Sundragon, 8 April 2021

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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