Goals for 2009

At the beginning of each year many people take a few minutes to figure out some New Year's resolutions. Most people do not put much thought into them because they do not really intend to follow through, at least not for very long. I do not do resolutions but I have been thinking for the past few days about some goals that I would like to accomplish in 2009. Here is what I came up with.

1) Build a website to work in conjunction with the blog. This will probably start out simple, I am still pretty green when it comes to HTML, but I would like to build it up so that at some point it can become a reference and educational tool, kind of following the spirit of the blog, for people who care about birding and nature.

2) I made a goal about the middle of last year to try and make a post every day. As a blog reader I know that the blogs that I visit frequently are the ones that have regular content. I succeeded in that goal, I have posted every day since June 5, 2008, but this year I am looking to take things a bit further. Two posts every day would be a little too much but I am going to try and get over 400 posts for 2009.

3) I have been participating in a lot of memes lately, I think that they are a great tool for bringing new people to the blog and hopefully some of those visitors will like what the see and return. I think that I have a good idea for a new meme and I plan to launch it sometime early in 2009, maybe as part of the new website.

4) One of the memes that I have been participating in lately is Today's Flowers. I have found that I took a lot more pictures of flowers and plants then I thought I did, but so far I have been lax in the meme and have not really followed through and identified the flowers or found any facts to pass on. In 2009 I plan to spend some time learning my flowers and plants. Will be an expert on botany? I don't think so but like many of the other things that I post about we can all learn together.

5) In the summer of 2007, shortly after I began the blog, I began shooting dragonflies during the height of summer when the birding was slow. Last year I got a lot more interested in photographing dragonflies and actively sought them out. In 2009 I am going to make an effort to try and photograph as many of the species that have been reported in the state of Minnesota as possible, that is over 100 different types.

Speaking of dragons here are some dragon shots that I took back in August, 8-11, at Purgatory Creek.

Eastern Pondhawk
Four-Spotted Skimmer

Once I have my Minnesota collection I will try and branch out and get some of the other types from other places around the country. Of course dragons will have their own section on the future website, which will hopefully help other people to learn about these raptor like insects.

Dragonflies Purgatory Creek

Up here in Minnesota the realities of winter are starting to sink in. The light covering of snow that we got this past weekend looks like it is going to stay and unfortunately there is surely a lot more on the way. I stopped by Lake Vadnais yesterday to photograph migrating waterfowl and found that they had already closed the road for the winter. I decided to park and walk in but I found most of the water near the shore was already ice and the only open water was near the middle of the lake so the birds were to far away to get any decent pics. So since I kind of have a case of the beginning of winter blues I decided to post some summer dragon pics to cheer up myself and anyone else who is already sick of snow, cold, and grey skies.
All of these pics where taken at Purgatory Creek Back on July 23rd. It is kind of fun to look at these pics and remember sweating out in the wetlands, back in July, when the high temps this week are in the 30s if we are lucky.The first three pics are of eastern pondhawks. Eastern pondhawks begin life bright green in color. Females stay this green color but as the males mature pruinosity covers the abdomen and and thorax and gives it the powdery blue color.
Another dragon that is very similar looking to the eastern pondhawk is the blue dasher. They also get a powdering blue color as they mature due to pruinosity but the pruinose on the blue dasher does not cover the thorax like it does on the eastern pondhawk.
Blue dashers typically hunt from a favorite perch. Both males and females will defend their preferred feeding perches leaving the perch only to catch prey or fend of a rival.

The eastern amberwing is one of the smallest dragonfly in our area. Since they are usually less then an inch long, the elfin skimmer is the smallest dragon in North America at .8 inches, they are often easier prey then other dragons. To help keep themselves from becoming prey they will often mimic wasps, which they resemble in size and color.

Fort Snelling Dragonflies

This summer I had a lot of opportunity to go out and photograph nature. As a result I have been able to post every single day for over four months, the last day that I did not make a post was June 4th. Before I began my blog I used to read other blogs, some about nature and others about different subjects such as politics, and one thing that kept bringing me back to certain sites was the fact that they updated every day, or at least on a very regular basis. As I began blogging, and figuring out what I was doing, I made a goal to try and get to the point where I could post every day so that my readers would always have something new to read and look at each day. I have succeeded over most of the summer and I hope to continue through the fall and even through winter. Winter is a hard time to get nature pics in Minnesota but there will be some opportunities and I have put away some photos that I did not post, so that I will have some fun stuff to share during the winter also.
I still also have quite a back log of posts that will probably last me through most of the rest of 2008. Like these dragonfly pics that I took back in July at Fort Snelling State Park.
The blue dasher hunts by making short flights, from a favorite perch, in serch of prey. Both the male, pictured above and the female, which is black and yellow striped, will defend a favorite perch from invading dragons.
I was pretty excited to get a photo of the photo of the dragon above. I have photographed several male eastern pondhawks before but this was the first female that I ever captured. The males are primarily green also but most of their thorax and abdomen is covered in in a slate blue pruinose.
There were also some more Halloween pennants around. Unlike the ones that I found at Purgatory Creek these where the orange color which most likely mean males.
When I saw this pennant through my lens finder the first thought that came to my mind was that it was laying eggs. That idea quickly dissappeared though because it was up in the air, it is probably a male, and eggs are laid from the end of the abdomen. The tiny dots that you can see in the photo are actually water mites. Water mite larva often attach to dragon fly larva and feed on its bodily fluid. The Mites, realatives of the wood tick, continue feeding on the dragonfly as it transforms into an adult. Eventually the water mite larva will drop off of the dragonfly and molt into its nymph form. As long as there are not too many mites the dragonfly can live as a host to these tiny parasites.

Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly

Another dragon that was plentiful at the Bass Ponds was the eastern pondhawk. These look similar, at least the males do, to the blue dashers from the last post except that they have 2 white spike at the end of their abdomen instead of the black tip that the dashers have.

Bass Ponds Dragonflies

On Monday July 14th it was a nice day so I decided to go and visit the Bass Ponds after work. In midsummer there is not usually a lot of birds around the Bass Ponds, but there are sure a lot of pond dwelling dragonflies to photograph.
The twelve-spotted skimmer is named for the black spots on its wings. You can see from both the picture above and the picture below that each of the four wings contains three black spots for a total of twelve all together. The male twelve spotters also have white spots in between the black spots so both of the pictured twelve spots are male.
Twelve-spots are pretty easy to photograph. Since they are fairly common dragonfly through out most of North America, except for the extremes, they are usually pretty easy to find. There size and the fact that they like to perch on the tops of sturdy vegetation also aides in finding this species. The best part though is that if you get to close and flush a twelve-spot chances are he will come back and land in almost the exact same spot. So all that you need to do is sit and wait.
The eastern pondhawk is not quite as easy to photograph as the twelve-spot. They are much less common and prefer to hunt from the ground, as pictured above, or a low perch. Females and immature males are green, but as the males mature they gain a powder blue pruinosity which begins from the end of their abdomen and eventually covers most of their body.
It is a bit more difficult to see the spots on the four spotted skimmer then on the twelve-spotted. The spots are the stigma, small colored patch at the end of every dragonflies wing, which is black and a heavy black nodal spot. The nodal spot is where a cluster of veins join together near the center of the front edge of each wing. All dragons have a nodal spot although on most it is not as visible as it is on the four-spotted. The four-spotted skimmer pictured above is probably pretty mature, you can tell because it has lost most of the color in its wings and its abdomen is fairly dark.
I think that it is strange that they call them four-spotted skimmers. Since they have 2 spots on each wing they actually have a total of eight spots, if you count them the way that twelve-spotted are counted.