Dragonflies at Bruce Starker Arts Park pond

[Don Boucher]

Hello,

If you’re looking for something to do on a hot summer day, head over to the pond at Bruce Starker Arts Park in Corvallis: https://goo.gl/maps/MHP8jLAtYCmPWe2s8

I led a field trip there yesterday, July 15, from 3 – 4:30 PM. The pond has lovely aquatic plants (many not native) and it’s swarming with dragonflies. Although it was in the upper 90s, most of us sat comfortably in portable chairs, in the shade of a sequoia tree, sipping cold drinks. Sitting works well with dragonflies because they forget you’re there and go about their business, sometimes flying by and perching really close. This is a good option if you’re birder and looking for something to do with your binoculars as bird activity wanes on hot summer days.

We also got to see a Green Heron eat a bullfrog. Although it wasn’t a full-sized bullfrog, it took a while for the heron to choke it down. It seems the Green Heron has a reliable supply of bullfrog youngsters and tadpoles at the pond.

Species pictured: Blue Dasher male (Blue Dashers were very numerous), Cardinal Meadowhawk, Common Whitetail, Eight-spotted Skimmer, Flame Skimmer, Tule Bluet, Western Pondhawk, Widow Skimmer and Green Heron. I also saw a Yellow-legged Mud-dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) collecting mud at the pond’s edge.

Other species encountered, but not pictured: Green Darner, Black Saddlebags.

Dragonflies were the most numerous and we saw very few damselflies. I was there last week and saw a Pacific Forktail. Blue damselflies can be tricky to identify because some species look very similar. Plus, as seen in the Tule Bluets photo, the female is an androchrome, which is where a female has some degree of male coloring. Lastly, and this is true for dragonflies, in the first hours or days after an odonate emerges from the water, they haven’t yet to develop their final adult colors. The term for this is teneral.

If you haven’t been to the Bruce Starker Arts Park pond, or haven’t visited in a few years, go! It’s been renovated to improve the quality of the water in its outlet into Dunawi Creek. It’s such a big improvement. Even though there are non-natives in the pond, nearby, many native plants were planted in the pond’s outlet, which was once just a grassy field. Here’s some background on the renovation project: https://sustainablecorvallis.org/what-we-do/action-teams/water/starker-arts-park-filtering-wetland/

During the field trip, we discussed all manner of odonate biology. I did my best to answer questions but I’m not an entomologist. I think this video: https://youtu.be/iJi61NAIsjs (18 min.) by the Real Science YouTube channel, covers some of the questions I didn’t know plus others I wouldn’t even image asking. Fascinating.

There will be more field trips, probably starting this fall, but none on the schedule yet. Stay tuned: http://neighborhood-naturalist.com/field-trips

Don Boucher

Corvallis

[Debi Murk]

Starker is my backyard pond.  I live up the street and go there a lot.  It's a great place.  If you go early and look in the swamp area you can see the beavers.  There was 1 in the creek eating along the boardwalk.  And then they also hang out over by the road where the creek goes under Technology.  I got a tail slap yesterday morning when I walked up and a beaver and I startled each other.

Otters have also been sighted in there a few times.  I post a lot of Starter stuff on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dmurkphotographs/  (you can see the otters I got pictures of)  And I've seen about 70 different birds there over the last few years.

There was a bit of a battle between the beavers and the city last spring.  The beavers were daming the creek by the parking lot and it was flooding.  Parks and Rec says they'll be putting in a pond leveler in August.  Hopefully that will mitigate the flooding when it starts raining again.

It's a wonderful park. 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mid-Valley Nature" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mid-valley-nat...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mid-valley-nature/CAPWYBy3kLZ5UavF4raWOnEY84Fy3%3DuyrPKjf9EVjbLsc_V2NZQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Owen Dell]

That was a great outing. Thanks, Don, for leading, and for all you do.