Late Weekend Bugs

Finally catching up with last weekend.

Saturday, I headed out to do my first concentrated odeing of the year. I started at the heron rookery in Littleton (which has dwindled quite a bit). Lots of bugs including many dragonflies (12+ species including FOY Chalk-fronted Corporal, Marsh Bluet, Sedge Sprite, and Eastern Pondhawk), a few butterflies, and assorted other things including 2 true bugs and my first Robber Flies of the year (photos of the last few aren’t good enough to show off).

The only cooperative ode was this pair of Aurora Damsels (actually many pairs were cooperative but this is the one I stopped to photo):

After that, it was on to Fort Pond Brook. I headed for the stream, where I picked up my first River Jewelwings of the year. There were some clubtails buzzing up and down along with many baskettails, but I couldn’t get a swing off. Working back out to the path, I found a mating pair of Stream Cruisers that posed very nicely:

And another Robbery Fly that didn’t photograph well. After restocking on tissues, I headed up the hill where there were lots of butterflies and dragonflies. Butterflies included my first Ringlets and Dusted Skippers of the year and dragonflies included many Lancet Clubtails and first of year Spangled Skimmers and Turquoise Bluets.

Things clouded up and started to look a bit threatening, so I decided not to check one last spot and headed home.

Sunday, I headed to Prospect Hill to check out a few birds. I was quite successful with that. Insect highlights included my first Twelve-spotted Skimmer of the year, an Eight-spotted Forester, and 16 species of butterfly including first of year Northern Cloudywing and Viceroy along with Dusted Skippers for the first time in a couple years on the hill and at least 4 American Ladies.

Twelve-spot

Eight-spot

The birds will have to wait for another time…