Does This Happen to Everyone?

You go about living your life till one moment your curiosity is piqued, ending your long habit of blithely going about your days and nights in blissful ignorance, and that very thing that captured your interest (that thing about which you previously knew nothing) now takes precedence in your mind, so much so that whatever you do and wherever you are, you run smack dab into it.

Like today, for instance. On my way home from shoe shopping in Tullahoma, I drove through Arnold Air Force Base and decided to have a look at Woods Reservoir. I parked by the water, opened the door, stepped out, and ran smack dab into this damselfly.

Big Bluet

Lake Cheston ABCedarian: R

R is for ROCKS.

As in Lake Cheston rocks the Odonates!

On October 13, I noticed a bright blue, largish damselfly in the spillway by the wooden dam bridge.


I leaned out as far as I thought safe and photographed what I thought was a Familiar Bluet. Here 'tis:

At the time, I thought something was strange, but I didn't know how strange till yesterday.

Having photographed the same damselfly on October 17, on the same side of the dam but in the grasses on the dam, I looked through every book and online. Not a Familiar Bluet, I realized, but it wasn't any other kind of bluet identified in my county either.

So.

I decided yesterday to post the photo on my Southeastern Odes Facebook group with a plea: "I need some help, please. I took this photo yesterday in Sewanee, TN. I thought it was a Familiar Bluet, but the terminal appendages are short, and there's a stripe down the middle of the thorax. I have noticed what I suspect is this same bluet (the only one I've seen lately) at the same small lake for several days now. Am I just second-guessing myself? Thanks!

Almost immediately, THE expert in damselflies and dragonflies of the Eastern U.S. responded, "Actually, I think it might be a Big Bluet, which has been found in recent years in Tennessee in several places, but none of them close to Sewanee. It should have looked somewhat larger to you (not wanting to put ideas in your head)."

BIG Bluet, I thought? They're coastal damselflies! Odonata Central confirmed what I had seen, and what I saw at the lake again today:

Welcome, Big Bluet -- damselfly species number 23 -- to the Domain of Sewanee: The University of the South!

Lake Cheston rocks!