The April 2024 Ohio Dragon Flyer Newsletter (33-2) is now available on the Ohio Odonata Society website.
This is the link to the newsletter archive:
https://www.ohioodonatasociety.org/dragonflyer-newsletters
The newest issue is at the top of the list. Notice too that you can get to all the past issues.
We have had Common Green Darners in the state for a little over a week. 9 observations recorded in iNat from Greene, Montgomery, Hamilton, Franklin, Logan, and Champaign Counties.
Logan and Champaign were both counties with first-ever March observations. Yay.
The near term weather is a bit cool, but warmer days are coming. Check out the OOS website on species with early flight at
https://www.ohioodonatasociety.org/species-flight-range-by-early-date
Many of you will be out with your cameras for the eclipse - keep an eye out as your waiting - maybe you'll see a dragonfly!
Note - along with my first Dragon of the year, there was also my first tick. It's not too early for protection and checking the usual places (hairline, crevices).
Here we go!
Mar 25 goes down as our first photos of Common Green Darner in Ohio. The day was warm with strong southern breeze.
iNat Observations include Montgomery, Hamilton, and Greene Counties. Yay.
Also, note iNat observations on Stream Cruiser, Blue Corporal, and Springtime Darner in Kentucky. These will soon begin to emerge in Ohio.
Check the Ohio Odonata Society web for details on and and flight for the species.
Newly emerged Common Green Darners (Anax junius) are being reported in southern states. Variegated Meadowhawks (Sympetrum corruptum) in good numbers now in Texas. The first Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita) was recently reported in Tennessee. So it won't be long until we have adult Odonata in Ohio.
We're past our early Common Green Darner date, which was Mar 6. Today, Mar 12, is our early date on Variegated Meadowhawk. The early Ohio date on Fragile Forktail is Mar 20. Our other March flier is Swamp Darner (Epiaeschna heros), with an early date of Mar 29.
Other early flight dates can be reviewed on the Ohio Odonata Society web site at:
https://www.ohioodonatasociety.org/species-flight-range-by-early-date
I would note that our 2023 early observations were on Apr 3&4 with Common Green Darners and Variegated Meadowhawks.
Also, current wind patterns look good for pushing Dragons from Texas.
This is the next step on thinking about our survey. Based on input, here is a new plot of observation and species data.
First individual days.
The dataset is all days from 2017-2023, Mar-Nov. 1,470 datapoints. The x axis is the number of observations on a day divided by the number of observers. The y axis is the percent of species recorded of the possible species maximum for the three distinct day periods for a month.
Relatively linear to start, up to about 8 observations/observer/day. This gets us half of the possible species.
Now a composite by calendar day. 246 datapoints - days with data summed across the 7 recent years.
Numbers are pretty scattered on the low end of observations, but close the gap at the upper right.
Now into March! Our earliest flying Odonata are recorded in March. Data indicate 34 adults, mostly Common Green Darner (27), then Variegated Meadowhawk (4), Fragile Forktail (2), Swamp Darner (1).
Watch the weather for south wind stormfronts that bring us the first wave of CGD. You can also anticipate by looking at iNat observations for states to the south (KY, TN, AL).
Here's the map. Darker counties are most recent (2017-2022). Note there were zero March observations in 2023.
Still thinking about survey and the number of observations to represent species. A different look is to start with individual days and plot number of species against number of observations on those individual days. Using recent years data (2021-2023), for our busier months (Apr-Sep), this is 524 days. There is data for every day for all three year in Jun-Sep, some missing days in Apr-May. Here's the chart:
The dots are color coded: Blue is Apr-May, Green is Jun-Jul, Orange is Aug-Sep. Remember that this is the same number of days (183) for Jun-Jul and Aug-Sep. Slightly less for Apr-May (158).
As expected, Jun-Jul show the highest numbers. Good diversity on the wing and people looking.
Apr-May is clustered on the lower left. While not much to see early on, there are some higher numbers in late May.
Aug-Sep is clustered generally higher than Apr-May, but well below Jun-Jul. No days above 50 species, even with higher numbers of observations.
Days are increasing in length. Spring flowers are off to an early start. Maybe a dragon soon? We're only a couple weeks away from our earliest Common Green Darner observation (March 6).
This got me thinking on what and when. As noted, CGD gets us started, then followed by Variegated Meadowhawk, Fragile Forktail, and Swamp Darner as possibilities in March. Check out the early flight date chart at https://www.ohioodonatasociety.org/species-flight-range-by-early-date
I updated the chart on observations and species count for our season intervals. This is based on all the data.
The peak for both occur in the last 10 days of June - the scales here are adjusted to match the peaks. Interesting that our species count generally outpaces our observations in this charting. I think it holds that the more observations we make, the more species we will see, but there's some wiggle room here. Things ramp up quickly starting in late April, then species hold on a little better in late September.
In review, 2023 had some interesting day numbers - which led to thinking more generally about the season and the data.
The number that started it was 721. This is the number of observations identified to species on 7/14/2023. This is the highest one day total (ever) in the data, ahead of the 696 from 6/25/2022. We also had a good day on 6/17/2023 with 693 observations. These "days" have more records than most historical "years", and any year prior to 1959 (which had 1014 observations).
We had three days in 2023 with observations in 40 different counties: 6/25; 7/14; and 7/16. High county days for earlier years were a peak of 44 counties on 7/8/2019, and three days for 42 counties: 6/21/2019; 7/14/2019; and 6/19/2022. We have to go back to 6/11/2016 to find the highest county number prior to the recent survey years (2017-2023) - this day had 17 counties and ranks as #659.
The 2023 day with the most observers was 7/16 with 75 different users. This is behind earlier year highs of 86 observers on 6/12/2021 and 80 on 7/13/2019.
One of the most remarkable numbers for 2023 was 75 species recorded on 6/4. 6/3/2023 was close with 68 species. These two days combined had 84 users recording 1012 observations covering 81 species. These species counts (75, 68, 81) represent half or more of the annual species totals.
Blue Dasher had the high one day observations on 7/14/2023 with 76. This number trails Eastern Forktail on 5/29/2022 with 112, and Eastern Pondhawk on 8/13/2022 with 103.
Widow Skimmer had the most counties in a day for 2023 with 21 on 7/14. Earlier highs are Blue Dasher in 2019 with 25 counties on 7/13 and 24 counties on 7/14.
Widow Skimmer on 7/14/2023 was also the high for number of observers for a species in a day with 27. This also lags the Blue Dasher on 7/13/2019 where 35 people recorded observations.
For individual users on individual days:
monicap273 recorded 229 observations on 6/3/2023
lisaclairemiller recorded 55 Blue Dashers on 8/8/2023
jimlem recorded 34 species on 7/27/2023
Five days had users with observations in 5 counties:
6/21/2023 - monicap273 (Hancock, Huron, Lorain, Sandusky, Seneca)
6/25/2023 - monicap273 (Columbiana, Harrison, Holmes, Jefferson, Tuscarawas)
6/26/2023 - dmcshaffrey (Carroll, Guernsey, Noble, Stark, Washington)
9/3/2023 - jimlem (Allen, Defiance, Logan, Paulding, Van Wert)
9/20/2023 - jimlem (Auglaize, Champaign, Mercer, Shelby Van Wert)
Following up on a post from a year ago: 'How are we doing with our survey effort?' From the data, let's look again at the combinations of county and species. With the 2023 data, we have 6,806 combinations of the 88 Ohio counties and the possible species. This number grows as County Records are established. We can compare this cumulative number to individual years, or now that we have 7 years of survey data, a multi-year accumulation. The chart shows the most recent years. In orange is cumulative co|sp value - as theoretical maximum growing year by year (scale is on the left). The blue line is the 1 year % value (right scale) of the max. The green line is the percent of the theoretical max accounted for in the 7 year running accumulation (scale is on the right). Note that prior to the start of the statewide survey, the percent yearly observed was in single digits, even with 7 year data, the % was only in the 20% range.. We are now over 80% - meaning a significant majority of the documented co|sp pairs are being recorded. This helps answer the question - we are doing better, and overall, pretty good.
Comparing pre-1950 data to Survey II (2017-2023), Survey II had 4129 Co|Sp combinations not recorded through 1950. Pre-1950 had 473 not in Survey II. What stands out as missing?
By species.
Rainbow Bluet in 21 Counties.
Lyre-tipped Spreadwing in 20 Counties.
Ruby Meadowhawk in 18 Counties.
White-faced Meadowhawk 14 Counties.
A partial explanation could be habitat loss through various means. Ruby Meadowhawk just needs more/better photos.
By County.
Ashland Co is short 37 species.
Defiance, 27 species.
Erie, 27 species.
Ottawa, 25 species.
Paulding, 35 species.
Williams, 33 species.
All of these deficits are probably due to decreased attention. These would be opportunities.
