I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to visit the coastal region of North Carolina this weekend. After reviewing information online I decided to focus my visit to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
While researching this area I found out there is a large concentration of black bears which was very exciting to me. The preserve is very wet with canals and irrigation ditches covering all of the property that I saw, the area is flooded in fall attracting huge numbers of waterfowl migrating down the eastern flyway. The wooded areas are extremely thick and swampy with the levees dividing them into management units.
I made a trip to the preserve visitors center over on Roanoke Island and took a few shots there as well including the bridge and the mocking bird.
I took this shot along Highway 64 near Columbia North Carolina on the drive from Raleigh to the coastal areas.
This bear was not crazy about my hanging around!
Some dragonfly varietys down here I had not seen before.
Another bear! I would guess I saw about 25 or so during my visit.
I caught this turtle on a road; I laid down on the road to get this ground level perspective on this guy.
This osprey carring a fish was shot on Roanoke Island.
This is the north bridge shot from Roanoke Island looking at the North Carolina coast.
Bonanza! You have Needham's Skimmer, a male and female. Most Excellent, these are only found on the East coast and along the gulf shore, FL and around the Gulf to Texas. Pretty Limited range in the world of Dragonflies. How cool is that? Good work, all of these are interesting. Excellent capture of the Mockingbird with the Great Pondhawk in it's beak. This is a winner.
ReplyDeleteGood on the Bears too. You Go Matt!
I had no idea the variety of dragonfly I had here, just thought they were beautiful, thanks for identifying them for us! It was so cool to see the bears but like you I thought the dragonflies were the star of the show. I also really like seeing all the turtles that were on the property, I think the one pictured is a yellow bellied slider, there were tons of them around. Thanks for your continued support and encouragement! Matt
DeleteI had to hit my books for that one Matt. The golden one is the female, and at first I thought it to be the same dragonfly I sent you the pic of, that I took in FL, a Golden-Winged Skimmer. But since you had a red male, I had to look him up, and his female is very similar to the female Golden-Winged. The distinguishing factor would not be visible in this image, but since you have the male, and his bright red color is diagnostic, it's a pretty sure thing you have the female as well. One thing dragonflies don't do: they don't hybridize. A male will only mate with the female of his own genus. It's like a lock and key mechanism, it only works with his own. It's a God thing.
DeleteI think I got them wrong. You do have Golden-Winged Skimmers, not Needham's, because red is often not represented acurately with digital capture. If he appeared to you as more orange than red, these are not Needham's. The pictures in the book are nowhere near as good as yours, but it looks like the black markings on his abdomen are more indicative of Golden-Winged Skimmers. Your pictures are excellent. I went by the color, and that's not a good key to use with digital.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your researching this!! I went back and looked at the RAW file and it does look dark orange to me...I increased saturation on the file in processing and that most likely made it look more red. Fascinating informmation you have given, Thanks
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DeleteIt's a tough call. I checked Giff Beaton's site, and his images show the black markings on the segments of both of these dragonflies. He wrote the book on dragonflies of the southeast, and his webpage has many that you will also find in OH. These are under the category King Skimmers.
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