December insects in Austin

It was another 70° day in Austin, and it brought out some butterflies and a few dragonflies. The dragonflies were taking the opportunity to mate. Dragonfly sex is weird (though perhaps no weirder than anyone else's). The male clasps the female behind the head with hooks at the tip of his abdomen, and the female reaches up with the tip of her abdomen, where she is keeping her eggs, and fertilizes the eggs at the male sex organs at the bottom of his thorax.

Variegated meadowhawks mating



And here is a view of a common buckeye butterfly, active on a warm December day...


...and here's another


click any photo for larger view

Variegated meadowhawk in flight

Yesterday the temperatures was over 80°F in Austin. Today the temperatures were in the upper 30s all day long. No dragonflies out today. This photo was taken yesterday. If this were a photo of a dragonfly at rest, I would not post it, because it is too blurry. An ideal camera for this photo would have been one which could focus as quickly as my eye, and could take non-grainy photos at very high ISO numbers. I do not have such a camera. But given a necessarily slow shutter speed, and the one shot out of a dozen tries that was almost in focus, it's not a bad picture of a dragonfly in the air.

A few Sunday close-ups

An orange sulphur butterfly, Colias eurytheme, on an unidentified salvia near my house



Two views of a common mestra, Mestra amymone, near Slaughter Creek in South Austin

Partial ventral view of the mestra's wings


Dorsal view



Variegated meadowhawk, Sympetrum corruptum, also near Slaughter Creek


Click photos to enlarge

Dragonfly at Hornsby Bend, and another butterfly photo

It was a lovely day today as I walked along the river at Hornsby Bend, and I saw my first red-tailed pennant, a fairly spectacular dragonfly which--as the name implies--has a bright red tail. I also took a couple of photos of a damselfly I can't identify, and maybe I will put up a photo of it if I ever do identify it.

Red-tailed Pennant, Brachymesia furcata



There were thousands of snout butterflies out, mating, hanging around, maybe migrating--I am not sure about that. They have colorful wings, in flight, but normally when they land they keep their wings folded, and they look like dead leaves. I was trying to get pictures of the dead-leaf pose, and just as I snapped the shutter, the butterfly flew away, and I caught it in flight. So here's a rare photo--for me--of an American snout, Libytheana carinenta, in the air.


Click to enlarge

Wednesday dragonflies

Two dragonflies near Slaughter Creek in South Austin. The first is another female Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis



This one is a Flag-tailed Spinyleg, Dromogomphus spoliatus, which has captured a skipper, probably a Southern broken-dash, Wellengrenia otho



Click to enlarge

Three odonates

The first two are damselflies. The great spreadwing and the Comanche dancer belong to different families of damselflies. Unlike most damselflies, spreadwings hold their wings out from their body when at rest.

Great spreadwing, Archilestes grandis



Comanche dancer, Argia barretti



The dragonfly is a a black setwing, Dythemis nigrescens, a mostly Mexican species.


All were photographed at the Zilker botanical gardens in Austin. Click to enlarge any photo.

Summer doesn't want to let go

It's been quite dry for the last 3 months in Austin. All the prickly pear cactus are withered from drought and look as if they might die, though they are in no danger of that. I guess I could provide visuals, but face it, a picture of a shriveled-up cactus lacks universal appeal. Some of the deciduous trees are shedding their leaves early. The flame-leaf sumacs, which (along with a native oak) provide about the only fall color around here, have already turned brown and lost their leaves. On my walks in a Searight Park I see few bicyclists and fewer joggers. After a brief respite, afternoon temperatures are back in the 90s.

The dry weather also seems to have reduced the number of dragonflies. On my walk today I saw only four species, but--and here is the good news, for me at least--I got reasonably good photos of two which I had not gotten decent pictures of before, a band-winged dragonlet and a female blue dasher. (I've gotten lots of good photos of male blue dashers, but this female is a first.)

Female blue dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis



Band winged dragonlet, Erythrodiplax umbrata


click photos to enlarge

Wednesday wildlife at Hornsby Bend

Hornsby Bend is a bend in the Colorado River near Austin named after an early settler, Rueben Hornsby, who built a log house nearby. It's presently the site of several large sewage treatment ponds, and is a premier place to go birdwatching--but mainly in the winter, when the smelly ponds are full of ducks. There are several miles of trails along the river and in the woods near the sewage ponds.

I went there to take pictures of dragonflies. I didn't see many, but I did get shots of a couple of black saddlebags, plus a butterfly and a snake. And it was a nice day for a walk.


Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacerata)



Another black saddlebags



Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, (Papilio glaucus), on a lantana flower



Eastern Yellowbelly Racer, (Coluber constrictor flaviventris)


(click any photo to enlarge)

Some recent dragonfly photos

Roseate skimmer



Another roseate skimmer. Females and young males are dull orange. Males as they get older develop a rosy red color, hence the more-often-than-not non-descriptive name.



A nicely perched red saddlebags


Click any photo to enlarge

Eastern pondhawk eating a damselfly

The damselfly is a powdered dancer. This is at McKinney Falls on Onion Creek near Austin, yesterday.

Click to enlarge.

Recent close-ups

This is a giant swallowtail Papilio cresphontes, which landed in deep shade a few feet from me as I walked along Slaughter Creek.



This is a tiny brown butterfly, most likely a fatal metalmark (Calephelis nemesis) or possibly a Rawson's metalmark (Calephelis rawsoni). They can only be told apart in the field if you have a ventral view of the hindwing, and since it was disinclined to fold its wings and I was unable to get below a butterfly on the ground, I am guessing this is the more common of the two species, C. nemesis. I don't know why it's called a fatal metalmark. A brief search on the web shed no light on the matter.



Here is a blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) which has almost worn out its wings. I like blue dashers not only because they are nice looking dragonflies but because it's easy to take pictures of them, and they also assume nice poses occasionally.



This damselfly is a tough one to identify. I think it is a female dusky dancer, Argia translata, but females of Argia species are very hard to ID with certainty.



click on any photo to enlarge

This blog is going on vacation for two weeks, maybe three. Hasta entonces.

A selection of recent dragonfly photos

A neon skimmer. Photo taken near Onion Creek, Austin.



A wandering glider a couple hundred yards from Slaughter Creek in Austin.



A blue dasher near a freshwater pond behind a motel in Port Aransas.



I'm not quite sure about this one. My best guess is that it is a five-striped leaftail, but it could be a four-striped leaftail or one of the forceptails. It's near Onion Creek in Austin.



A very fine red saddlebags in Port Aransas.


All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Random recent nature photos

As Texas became drier at the end of the last glaciation, we were left with some isolated wetland plants in unlikely places. We have a few surviving pockets of dwarf palm (Sabal minor) here in central Texas. These palmettos (from the Spanish palmito, little palm) are more typical of Florida and Louisiana than Texas. Here is a deer in the palmettos.



Here is a Needham's skimmer, photo taken at Port Aransas.



Sandwich terns at Port Aransas.



And here is the Texas great white shark, closing in on its prey, also at Port Aransas.


(click photos for larger view)

Monday miscellany

Here are two dragonflies on the same ragweed stalk. The top one is a halloween pennant, and the lower one an immature male roseate skimmer. I wish they had been close together so I could upload a bigger image, but I think this is about as close as they get--I suspect the skimmer had intentions of eating the pennant, which in fact flew away right after I took the shot.



Here's a tiger swallowtail on a buttonbush flower


(Click to enlarge)

I'll be back Friday