Some Mid-summer Scenes

 Not much to report this time around as things have been fairly boring recently.  There has been nothing unusual in my travels.  Same old stuff, but in any case, I like being out with nature every day.

Been looking for odes, but is not a banner year around here for them.  I have stopped at Moore WMA a couple of times in the last week.  Monday, the river was flooding!  So, I did not see much since I could not cross it.

R R Cruiser

Stream Bluet

Blue-tipped Dancer

Yesterday I stopped by, and it was back down to normal.  Blue-fronted Dancers are there by the hundreds, but a few Blue-tipped can be seen.

I finally managed to see a Mocha Emerald for this year, but it was on the fly out of reach.

Of course, I always look for mussels.  Nothing new this week.  Deertoe and Mapleleaf are common here.

As well as Fragile Papershell.

For odes today, I stopped by the Tecumseh Monument park east of Thamesville. Here we have a good spot to get down to the riverbank and look for odes.  It is at least a week early for Smoky Rubyspots, so I will check again next week or so.

American Rubyspot

There was little variety today, but American Rubyspots were plentiful as well as Blue-fronted Dancers.  Some Stream Bluets were here, and I found this amusing one.  Looks like the male took off in such a hurry, it left its abdomen!

A Common Sootywing caught my eye here as well.

I also headed up to Shetland.  Today was not the best weather day with mainly overcast and a bit of rain--typical weekend weather!

Here, I managed to see a Flag-tailed Spinyleg.  I could not get the best photo before it took off across the river and set down on the dock!

A few Blue-ringed Dancers were still around.

Blue-tipped as well.

I saw one Variable Dancer before the rain started.

A Royal River Cruiser also went by....expected here.

The rest of today I was lazy and sat on the back deck at home!  Some yard creatures:

Peck's Skipper

Eastern Forktail

I have been to Rondeau a couple of times as well.  Not much to report in migrants.

A stop at Blenheim lagoons this morning revealed nothing of note....again!

Last Monday I checked out a section of the CASO rail trail that runs through C-K.  

There are some good sections to look for birds and insects.  My favourite was always the section between Highgate and Muirkirk on the butterfly counts.  

That section has two rail lines side by side. The old New York Central (later Michigan Central) was beside the CASO trail.  We had good success on the counts years ago there.