Painted Skimmers in Flamborough, Hamilton-Wentworth

[Bill Lamond]

Hi, 

On the weekend past I saw Painted Skimmers in two places in the Hamilton Area. The first place was at the Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve in southern Wellington County on Saturday 2 July where I saw a teneral individual. The other location was a wetland complex across from the Hyde Tract on Safari Rd in Hamilton-Wentworth on 3 July. Here I saw 18 individuals and I think all were teneral, some extremely so, indicating that they had just emerged that morning. At times I was flushing multiple individuals as I walked with five flying in front of me at one time on one memorable occasion. I was on a butterfly count on this date so I was preoccupied but when I came back along the same route to try to do a more thorough count, I only saw one individual. I have seen Painted Skimmers at this location in the past, never in these numbers and not in every year I visit. In fact most years none. Thus I think they are only a temporary resident at this location.

I find this species intriguing in Ontario as its occurrence is erratic. It is definitely an immigrant owing to the good numbers of worn individuals that can be seen at Point Pelee in the spring. In the Hamilton area I believe it is only a temporary resident for whatever reason. The larvae can obviously survive Ontario winters as evidenced by the large numbers of teneral (freshly emerged) individuals I observed two days ago at the above wetland complex. Why it does not seem to be found at the same wetland from year to year in the manner of other skimmers is a mystery to me. What a great MSc thesis this would be (amongst dozens of others).

I have entered these records and all the other odes at these locations (along with photos) in Odonata-Central. I really enjoy this website as it is much like eBird for odes with naturalists being allowed to submit complete checklists of all odes from a single location with or without photos. Photos are vetted by experts. I am surprised that so few naturalists in Ontario use this resource. It is far superior for odes than iNat, IMO.

Bill