OdoNotations

Revisiting Terry Carisse Park

I haven’t spent much time at Terry Carisse Park this year, as I’ve had other projects and priorities demanding my attention and limited ode-hunting time. However, in May I received an email from a blog reader in Montreal named Pierre who was interested in trying to find a particular damselfly species – the Rainbow Bluet – which he and his wife had tried to find last year, without any luck, in known areas of Ottawa. He was interested in visiting Terry Carisse Park after reading my blog posts and messaged me in late May for the details, hoping these small, colourful damselflies would be easier to find this time around. I told him the best places to find them in the park (at the canoe/boat launch at the north end of the park and in the sunny vegetation at the top of the river bank along the south end) and told him to let me know how it went. I didn’t expect to hear from him until after his visit, but received another message on June 12th asking if I had been there recently. I hadn’t – I’d spent the previous two weekends in Nova Scotia, and the weather on my remote-work days has been too lousy to go look for odes. But when I saw the forecast for the following day – sunny and warm – I decided to head on over to see if I could do some pre-scouting for him ahead of his weekend trip.

Two provinces. Six families. One unbelievable day.

Swift River Cruiser (Macromia illinoiensis)

If you had told me it was possible to see more than a dozen Prince Baskettails hanging from the pine trees like early Christmas ornaments, three perching Swift River Cruisers (including two in a mating wheel), a perching Springtime Darner, an ovipositing Cyrano Darner, an emerging Dragonhunter, four additional clubtail species, a dozen Brush-tipped Emeralds, about 50 Widow Skimmers, and an Arrowhead Spiketail all in a single day here in the Ottawa region, I am not sure I would believe you. That kind of day is so rare in Ottawa that I would would assume that you were engaging in a particularly fanciful daydream. However, on the Quebec side of the river many things are possible. Part of it is due to the scenic geography – the deep, rocky lakes, rushing streams, and variety of marshes, swamps and bogs carved out of the Canadian Shield provide a fantastic variety of habitats. Part of it is due to the untouched wilderness outside of the Gatineau area – there are no cottages lining the shore, no subdivisions full of manicured lawns, no pesticides and insecticides to wreak havoc on insect populations. These two factors make it an excellent place to see a variety of odes – especially along the Ottawa River, a major dragonfly habitat of its own.

Richmond Lagoon Damselflies

I often visit the former Richmond Lagoons (now called the Richmond Conservation Area) around late June or early July to look for spreadwings, as this is one of the best places to find five or six different species. It’s one of the few places I can find Lyre-tipped Spreadwings easily, and in 2023 I found another difficult-to-find species here, the Emerald Spreadwing. Both spreadwings are listed as “uncommon” in the Ottawa checklist, but the Lyre-tipped Spreadwing is also designated as “local,” having a special preference for shallow marshes and vegetated ponds completely in the open, particularly those that often dry up during prolonged droughts. While the Lyre-tipped Spreadwings typically disappear with the water, they are also quick to appear in temporary flooded areas such as farm ponds, gravel pits, and artificial ponds. While Emerald Spreadwings also inhabit densely vegetated, shallow wetlands, they can be common in shrubby or forested areas a distance away from their breeding ponds. Emerald Spreadwings are not usually successful in wetlands where predators such as fish or dragonflies are common, which may explain why they can be tough to find.

The Bite of a Dragon

This weekend promised to be the hottest one of the year – over 30°C with humidity that made being outdoors feel like being smothered in a wet sheet. I went out early Sunday morning to Sheila McKee Memorial Park, hoping to find more clubtails and perhaps an interesting darner or emerald. As it was already 10:00 when I got there, I went down to the beach first because I thought it would get more crowded later and because the sun hits the shoreline at the base of the escarpment early in the morning – a vital factor when looking for uncommon dragonflies sitting on sun-drenched leaves.

Looking for Spring Odes at AHP

Andrew Haydon Park is not a place I visit often in June; it’s more of place I visit in fall and early winter for migrating waterfowl, early spring for more of the same, and then in July through to the end of dragonfly season to look for summer odes. I’ve never looked for odes at the beginning of dragonfly season, since all of the species recorded there are easily found elsewhere, but after reviewing iNaturalist I realized there were a lot of species present that I hadn’t yet recorded there personally. Most of these are one-time observations on iNaturalist – many are very common species that fly early in the season, and only a handful fly later in the summer. This made it a great reason to stop by the park for a quick check after leaving the Watts Creek Pathway and before going on to Sheila McKee Memorial Park.

Exploring Kanata’s Creeks

Last November I spent some time on Google maps looking for accessible creeks around the fringes of Kanata north where I might find some creek-loving odonates. If a tiny fragment of a stream in Stony Swamp could hold Arrowhead Spiketails, who knows what other species might call these small streams home? I wasn’t expecting anything as magnificent or scarce as a Mustached or Eastern Least Clubtail, but I thought that Stream Cruisers, Fawn Darners, River Jewelwings, and maybe a spiketail might be possible.

A few areas looked particularly interesting, including a section of Shirley’s Brook between Station Road and Monk Environmental Park, the stream that drains the eastern end of the Beaver Pond near Lismer Pines Park, and Stillwater Creek where it runs between Corkstown Road and the Trans-Canada Trail, aka the Watts Creek Pathway. Although all of these streams run through green space, the surrounding areas had become built up with new homes and developments over the years. The Crystal Bay/Lakeview Park subdivision just south of Andrew Haydon Park is long-established, with a narrow band of trees running between the subdivision and Highway 417, but the area around the Beaver Pond off of Goulbourn Forced Road started being cleared for housing relatively recently (around 2010), starting with the controversial Terry Fox extension, and houses are still being built there to this day. The forest is thickest in Monk Environmental Park where there is little encroachment so far, and my hopes were highest for this little park as a result.

New Odes in Marlborough Forest

Marlborough Forest is one of my favourite spots for ode-hunting. There are so many terrific species there, including some considered scarce, rare, or even very rare according to the official Ottawa checklist. So far I’ve found three lifers here – two of which I have not seen again in the forest or anywhere else: Ocellated Emerald on June 21, 2020, and Ashy Clubtail on June 19, 2022. The third species, Kennedy’s Emerald, was a lifer for me in Marlborough Forest on June 12, 2021 in Marlborough Forest and then, oddly enough, turned up on a house in Nepean on May 21, 2023. The sheer size of the forest – over 9,300 hectares of meadows, wetlands, old plantations and natural forests – tantalized me with the mysteries hidden within its depths, whether those be bog-loving Somatochlora emeralds, remnants of old farmsteads, or rumours of long-lost graveyards.

Stony Swamp Dragons

It’s mid-June, which means the season is flying by and soon some of the early-season species will be gone. I’ve been trying to get out every chance I get, but uncooperative weather and a busy work week after my vacation meant that I wasn’t really able to get out until earlier this week for some intensive dragon-hunting. I worked from home Monday and Wednesday, and with the weather finally turning warm and sunny, a couple of lunchtime outings this week in Stony Swamp resulted in some surprisingly good dragonflies!

On Monday I visited Jack Pine Trail with one goal: to see if any Arrowhead Spiketails were flying. Some emeralds would be nice, too, as well as any spreadwings or cruisers, but the spiketail was my target species. Jack Pine Trail is the most reliable location for it in the west end, and when present I only seem to find it during the second or third week of June. The official checklist of Ottawa says it is present in the region between early June and early July, so I had high hopes of finding one.

Rarities Along the River

The Uhler’s Sundragon is an early-flying member of the emerald family that is apparently more easily found on the Quebec side of the OFNC study circle. However, iNaturalist shows a few records from the Quyon ferry dock along the Ottawa River, so one of my goals was to spend some time visiting places like the ferry dock, Sheila McKee Memorial Park, and Fitzroy Provincial Park to look for it and other river odes, including the uncommon Mustached Clubtail. I’ve only seen the Sundragon twice, both times in Nova Scotia, and in the same habitat – medium-sized- rocky forest streams flying over the gentle pools of water either at the top or bottom of a waterfall. Fortunately their patrols take them along the shoreline, and I was able to catch two in 2024 and one earlier this year. My goal was to see one in Ottawa, and I had high hopes for finding one at Fitzroy Provincial Park as there are two small rivers running through it that I wanted to check.

To See an Elfin Skimmer

On Saturday, June 14, 2025 Derek Dunnett and I led a combined birding and dragonfly outing at Murphy’s Point Provincial Park for the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ and McNamara Field Naturalists’ Clubs. It was restricted to 20 people for carpooling purposes (the park roads are quite narrow for parking) and 18 showed up altogether. Unlike our trip last year, the weather was perfect: cool and sunny in the morning, hot and sunny in the afternoon with a hint of a breeze. Our targets this year included Cerulean Warbler (which had been heard singing earlier in the week), Blue-winged Warbler, and Golden-winged Warbler, while our odonate targets included the diminutive Elfin Skimmer and various stream odonates. Last year the trip had been postponed several times due to rain, and we missed the Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, and Elfin Skimmer as by the time we had visited (July 7) it was late in the breeding season and the weather for ode-hunting (thickly overcast in the morning) was less than ideal.

New Dragonflies at Bruce Pit

I’ve been spending time on iNaturalist again, updating my list of odonates found at various places around Ottawa and making a list of target species that others have seen that I have not. Bruce Pit was of particular interest to me, as Chris Lewis had sent me her personal list of species last summer; I was missing quite a few species she had seen (though I had found others she had not). Between her list and those listed in iNaturalist, I counted nine regular species that I was missing from my personal list: Black-tipped Darner, Harlequin Darner, Dusky Clubtail, Lilypad Clubtail, Common Baskettail, Prince Baskettail, Emerald Spreadwing, Orange Bluet, and Stream Bluet. One reason is that I usually don’t visit Bruce Pit early in the dragonfly season when some of these species are flying, while another is that sometimes when I visit I only check one or two areas. As a result, I planned to visit the conservation earlier in the season and see if I could find some new species for my personal list.

Nova Scotia in June

Back in March my partner and I bought a trailer in Nova Scotia. We don’t have any property yet so it is currently parked next to a relative’s house. This will give us a place to stay when we go back instead of spending money on an Airbnb – though we have stayed in some nice ones over the years! This also means I could buy a second dragonfly net and leave it there for those occasions when we fly instead of drive.

We took a vacation during the first week of June so I could see it for the first time. It’s amazing – 40 feet long, with an actual bedroom, living area, kitchen area, and dining area and even an electric fireplace! Although it is 12 years old, it has been immaculately maintained with new furniture and a new furnace. We spent the first two days furnishing it and getting to know how it works – the weather was lousy (cold, overcast and blustery) so I wasn’t interested in spending much time outdoors anyway.

The 2025 Ode Season Begins!

I usually see my first dragonfly of the year in April, which is not surprising given that the first dragonflies migrate here from further south during the first prolonged warm spell of the month. They are always Common Green Darners, heading north to find new ponds and lakes in which to breed. It isn’t until later in May, usually the second week when temperatures are consistently in the 15-20°C range, that the local species emerge, chiefly skimmers and emeralds and, of course, damselflies. However, this season it didn’t warm up to 20°C until the very end of the month of April. It was still warm by the time the first weekend of May arrived, and on May 4th I finally saw my first Common Green Darners at a small pond in Stony Swamp – three males, it appeared.

In Memoriam – Christina Lewis

Earlier this month I was informed of the passing of one of Ottawa’s original dragon-hunters, Christina Lewis. She was not only a mentor to me and Chris Traynor in all things odonate, she was a dear friend and a lovely person – humble, self-effacing, with a quiet sense of humor and deep love of nature.

Chris and her late partner Bob Bracken developed an interest in odes in the 1990s and were tutored by Raymond Hutchinson, Benoit Menard, Paul Catling, Colin Jones and Michael Runtz. They pored over EM Walker’s old publications, corresponded with Colin Jones, and spent time in the field with Raymond Hutchinson and Benoit Menard on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, Paul Catling on the Ontario side, and Michael Runtz in Renfrew County where he lived at the time. These men were the most instrumental in helping Chris and Bob learn how to look at odes, where to go to find them, and encouraging them to document their records. In 1998 she and Bob produced the official checklist of odonates in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, which has been updated several times since then. They wrote many articles for the Ottawa Field Naturalists (and not just about odonates), but their joy came from visiting a variety of habitats just to see what was around, sometimes looking for specific species, often submitting their observations to Ontario Odonata.

Taxonomy Change: Didymops

The so-called “brown cruisers” are no more. On April 16, 2025 genus Didymops, representing two species – the Stream Cruiser (Didymops transversa) and Florida Cruiser (Didymops foridensis) – was changed to Macromia, which includes all of the river cruisers.

Regarding differences between the two genera, Ed Lam’s fantastic new field guide Dragonflies of North America notes that the brown cruisers “fly early in the spring, their life cycle largely completed before river cruisers emerge”. Dennis Paulson’s information-packed guide Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East describes brown cruisers as “smaller, duller editions of the large and showy river cruisers” and states that they “hold the abdomen more elevated than river cruisers do”.

Clearly such differences are no longer important enough to warrant the brown cruisers being placed in their own genus.