Odonata of Twin Lakes Sarnia, ON

Male Widow Skimmer, Libellula luctuosa (top), Variable Dancer, Argia fumipennis violacea (bottom)  

Note the setae (hairs) on tibia of the dancer are twice the length of the spacing between - a characteristic of Agria species.

A link to a fantastic reference: http://homepage.mac.com/edlam/index.html

I also use the Photo Field Guide to the Dragon Flies and Damselflies of Southwestern Ontario (Second Edition) by Ian Carmicheal, Alister MacKenzie, and Brad Steinberg.

Studying turtles

For my summer vacation I had the chance to study turtles. Much of the work invovled catching turtles and recording all kinds of data and then quickly releasing them. We looked for nests in areas with exposed sandy banks, without success.  We did find some predated nests.  On Thursday, we started out by checking our hoop nets.  There was only one snapper, which we measured and marked (by filing triangles into the posterior marginal scutes). A stressful experience for the snapper, but a painless process overall. We captured several painted turtles, measured them and marked two which had not been caught previously.  During the six hour paddle we saw many herons (at least four) and one green heron.


http://friendsofpinerypark.ca/SAR%20Turtle%202010%20Poster%20FINAL.pdf
 

Removing 13-14 year old female snapping turtle from hoop net (top), measuring (middle), Green Heron (Butorides virescens) (bottom)

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