Canada Thistles Feed Birds and Insects

American Goldfinch

I must remind myself to watch carefully at the Canadian thistles.  They have lots of mature thistle seeds which feed the birds, probably most notably, the American Goldfinch.

Silver_spotted Skipper

 The blooms contain nectar which feeds several insects such as the Silver-spotted Skipper above, as well as bees and other butterflies.  

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Mining Bee

Mining Bee

This bee could be easily mistaken for a bumble bee but they are larger, at least this year, and have no hair on the abdomen.

Mining Bee

  Like the honey bee, they also love the nectar of the milkweed.

As you have probably guessed from its name, it lives under ground.

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The Flying Wing

Northrop B-2 Spirit

The Nazis were working on a flying wing during WW II.

Northrop N-1M from Wikipedia

In this country, during the war, Jack Northrop had one.  The Northrop N-1M, was yellow and had two pusher props.  It was considered successful.

YB-49 from Wikipedia

They went on to build the YB-49 which was, of course, jet powered and projected to be a bomber.  It tended to wallow as it flew keeping the pilot very busy dampening the un-commanded movements.  If I recall correctly, they built almost 100 B-49s before the program was call off.

The B-2 is also a flying wing.  It works because the un-commanded movements are dampened by the fly-by-wire computer.  Its stealthy qualities come from the inherent low radar cross section of the flying wing.  In addition, the aircraft is coated with a radar absorbent material.

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Slaty Skimmer

Slaty Skimmer

I have read in Dragonflies and Damselflies of Northeast Ohio that these dragonflies are uncommon.  That is not the case at Gorman Nature Center.  They are very common, I would say.  They fly around the North and West sides of the pond and the peninsula.  They are quite flighty in this hot weather.  They will sit for you if you can catch them on a cooler morning.  

Slaty Skimmer

Being so dark, they don't show up well in an image.  They do stand out on a sunny day, though.

They don't return to a perch as predictably as other dragonflies.

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Slender Spreadwing

Slender Spreadwing Male

There are a few damselflies which spread their wings when perched.  Hence, part of the name.  It is interesting to note that certain locations on my morning walk consistently have certain dragonflies or damselflies.  The location for the spreadwings is the vernal pool north of the covered bridge.  I have not seen them anywhere else at Gorman.

I have no data except my own observations, but I think that particularly the damselflies stay close to the pool from which they moulted.  The larger, stronger flying, dragonflies may range farther from "their" pool.  I see dragon flies all around the walk, some of which, are maybe a quarter to half mile from any pools.

I think that I could take you for a walk around my trail and predict which ones we might see in the different locations.

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The Blue Dasher

Blue Dasher Male

These dragonflies are relatively easy to photograph.  They sit for you and will return to the same perch time after time.

Blue Dasher Female

The female has a different appearance.  

Blue Dasher Female Ovipositing

Ovipositing means laying eggs.  The eggs which are being laid in the above picture will hatch and remain in the pond for more than one year, maybe three or four, as nymphs.  They will have no wings, six legs upon which they can walk, and a jet propulsion system giving them rapid movement under water when needed.

The adults, see above, only live for a few days or weeks.

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Condensation on the Lens

Creek Sand

The recent storms washed a great deal of sand from the bridge 2 area into the upper end of the frog pond.  I was disappointed because I like to photograph the ripples on the sandy bottom.

The humidity was high and my lens had been in the basement before I took it out.  It fogged up as soon as I removed the lens cap.  You can see some of the fog on the left and right edges.  I had the Sigma 24-70 millimeter, f/2.8 lens zoomed to 42 mm for this shot and set at f/9.5.

Creek Sand

I had noticed that the fog was leaving the lens surface from the center first.  For this shot I zoomed out to 24 mm.  I don't have to point out that the foggy part of the shot is wider.

Creek Sand

I was waiting until the fog receded from the center of the lens enough to get a clear shot.  Same settings here.

Creek Sand

Finally, it cleared and I was able to capture this image.  I just thought the process interesting.  I don't know why the fog cleared from the center, the thickest part, first.

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