Variegated Meadowhawks

I'd nearly given up on seeing a Variegated Meadowhawk this year. Usually, I see them in the spring when they arrive with the other regular migrant, the Common Green Darner. This year the Common Green Darners arrived on their own. Conditions were such that the Variegated Meadowhawks either didn't arrive here in the spring or they arrived in low numbers and I didn't find them.

Today, walking home after a hike to the St Olaf Natural Lands, I decided to cut through the restored prairie of Lashbrook Park. Dozens of White-faced Meadowhawks perched low along the edges of the mowed trails. Then I noticed a golden-colored meadowhawk flying above my head, glider-like, and I knew in an instant that it was a Variegated Meadowhawk. I waited for it to land, thinking this might be the one and only chance I'd get to observe this species this year. After it perched, I was able to get close enough to photograph it and see that it was a juvenile female, recently emerged.

Ten minutes later, leaving the park, I encountered a second Variegated Meadowhawk. This one was a male, but also a juvenile, yellow colored instead of red. This species grows incredibly fast, going from egg to nymph (through all dozen instars) to adult in about two months time. Therefore the eggs for the two dragonflies encountered today must have been oviposited in a nearby pond sometime around the beginning of July. The eggs of all the other species of meadowhawks in North America all overwinter as eggs, undergoing a period of diapause, a suspended development during the cold months.

Posted on 09 de setembro de 2017, 03:26 AM by scottking