Fall Colors

Two years ago Betsy and I spent a few days at the Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, WA to enjoy the wonderful Fall colors.  We've been seeing similar beautiful colors this year, but still nothing to match that year.  That visit was incredible also because of the six different species of meadowhawks we saw.  Here's our report from October 23 and 24, 2013:

Last week, October 23 and 24, Betsy and I went to the Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, WA to enjoy the Fall colors for a couple days.  It was beautiful there, as you can see in these photos:

Sun Mountain Lodge from our room.

The Fall colors were in full effect.

A Golden-crowned Kinglet gave me an opportunity for a quick snapshot.

We went to the Beaver Pond, of course, but weren't expecting that much dragonfly activity.  We would have been happy to see a few.  As it turned out, the activity was very good, with lots of darners patrolling the shore looking for females, and meadowhawks flying in tandem over the water, dipping and laying eggs.  In some areas, each step would flush several meadowhawks from the ground into the air.  It was delightful.  We had a six meadowhawk day, with the following species:

White-faced Meadowhawk
Striped Meadowhawk
Saffron-winged Meadowhawk
Band-winged Meadowhawk
Black Meadowhawk
Autumn Meadowhawk

A six meadow hawk day would be good in the summer, but was especially pleasant to experience this time of year.  The most common species was the Saffron-winged Meadowhawk.  We saw only one White-faced Meadowhawk, and it set a new record late date by 16 days.  Here are pics of the meadowhawks:

White-faced Meadowhawk.

Striped Meadowhawk.  An older individual with frayed wings and faded stripes.

Saffron-winged Meadowhawk on the left, and Band-winged Meadowhawk on the right.

Black Meadowhawk.  We don't see Black Meadowhawks all that often, so this one was a particular treat.

Autumn Meadowhawk.  One of the "field marks" for Autumn Meadowhawks is that they land on you.

As usual, we had a great time at the Sun Mountain Lodge and the Beaver Pond.

The Whisperer Speaks!

In just one month, on May 22, 2014, The Dragonfly Whisperer speaks at the general meeting of the Prescott Audubon Society.  They've been kind enough to invite me, and I'm looking forward to a fun evening.

They have a very active organization, with lots of different programs, and they've produced some excellent promotional materials to advertise the talk.  As an example, here's an ad they'll be distributing soon:

That should attract some attention.

Their website contains more specific information:

Betsy and I will be there – be sure to say "Hi" if you can make it, too.

You can find more information about Prescott Audubon at their website:

http://prescottaudubon.org

Cherry Springs Nature Sign

Not long ago, I was contacted by naturalist Sheri Covert at the Cherry Springs Nature Area new Pocatello, Idaho.  She was putting together an interpretive sign to inform visitors about some of the interesting insect life to be found there, and asked if she could use some of my dragonfly pictures.  I was happy to help with a project like that, and I supplied her with pictures of the species she was looking for.  Here's the sign, which looks quite nice:

Here's an enlargement of the dragonfly section:

All of these pictures are ones I've taken over the last few years.  It's nice to see them being used in a good cause like this.

Sun Mountain Lodge

Last week, Betsy and I went for a couple days to Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, WA.  We usually go there in the summer for birding and dragonflying, but had never gone in the Fall.  We're glad we did – the weather was beautiful, and such a nice change from the persistent fog in Puget Sound the last couple of weeks.

Here's the lodge as viewed from out room:

Sun Mountain Lodge from our room.

The Fall colors were more than we had hoped for.  Here are some samples from around the grounds of the Lodge:

Betsy at Sun Mountain Lodge.

Admiring the Fall foliage.

Fall colors everywhere.

Colorful leaves were on the ground and in the trees.

Nice views from the mountains …

… to the Moon.

Here's a view from the Lodge down toward Lake Patterson:

Lake Patterson and the road home.

We also saw some nice birds.  Here are a couple:

A Golden-crowned Kinglet.

A female Hairy Woodpecker.

There were lots of dragonflies, too.  In fact, we saw two different species of darners and six species of meadowhawks.  Here's a photo of two species of meadowhawks sitting side-by-side:

Two male meadowhawks.  On the left a Saffron-winged Meadowhawk, and on the right a Band-winged Meadowhawk.

All in all, a wonderful couple days off to enjoy the Fall.

The Whisperer Speaks

I'll be giving a dragonfly talk for the Maricopa Audubon Society next Tuesday, April 2, at 7:30 pm.  It will be held at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.  Here's a little blurb about the talk:

It will be fun, as usual, to share the enjoyment of dragonflies with others.

Halloween 2012

We had a good Halloween, with about 25 trick-or-treaters visiting our domicile.  It started out stormy and windy – in fact, it was pretty wicked outside when Betsy and I set up the jack-o-lanterns.  Shortly after that, however, the winds calmed down and the rain stopped.  It was reasonably nice the rest of the evening, and the kids took advantage of the break in weather.

Here are the jack-o-lanterns we put of to greet the trick-or-treaters:

Jack-o-lanterns for our Halloween.  Clockwise from lower left, they are "BOO" jack, "Happy-face Dragonfly" jack, and "Classic" jack.

We still get some nice sunsets, though the weather has been pretty cloudy in general:

It's late in the year, but we're still seeing a lot of dragonflies at Cranberry Lake when the sun comes out.  In the following photo the large bluish dragonflies are the Happy-face Darner, the red ones are the Autumn Meadowhawks.