This afternoon, I went to Abbo's Alley to snap some more fall leaf porn. Before I even got out of the car, I saw a large dragonfly fly onto a leaf at creek's edge right on South Carolina Avenue. I gathered my camera and hat without ever looking away, edged out of the car, and approached. Naturally the bug took off, flew around the back of the car, and across the street. Oh well, thought, that''s that.
I'm not sure why, but I decided to walk into the Alley by way of the creek. I went no more than 15 paces before I spotted two large damselflies on the wing, lighting on grass stems, then taking off, then lighting again. Then, like a zipper opening, a large dragonfly flew up the creek from the street: the same one I had seen minutes earlier.
After some stalking and snapping, I came home, confident that I had seen Southern Spreadwings and a Cyrano Darner, but when I downloaded the pictures and looked at them, I knew I had been wrong. Once again, I turned to Facebook, asked if I was right about the damselfly being a Great Spreadwing and the darner being a Cyrano, and almost immediately got this response, "Your darner is a male Shadow Darner (Aeschna umbrosa). You are correct that the spreadwings are Great Spreadwings (Archilestes grandis)."
All I can say is HOLY COW! Neither has been reported for my county previously! The count is now 35 species of dragonfly and 25 of damselfly!
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