Fun Odes

Though not all of them can pull off the stare-into-your-soul look that a Cobra Clubtail can...

Frosted Whiteface's are much less intimidating, for a midday sun pic, the lighting in this one is not bad.

It's skimmer time of year though, this is 4-Spotted Skimmer.  I wasn't quite sure what it was.  It's relatively small for a skimmer, a somewhat hairy body with some yellow edging to the abdomen and some patterning at the base of the wings.  Holding it with the wings pulled back it looked an awful lot like a Common Baskettail.  I'd decided that was it was and gave it to Hazel to release.  It didn't fly right away and I took a shot of it on her finger.

 It was at that point I realized it was something different. Oops.  Fortunately it didn't fly.

No such ID problems with Golden-winged Skimmer.

 Or Painted, which I've featured before.

I don't have a good feel for darners.  Common Green is everywhere but I've only seen other species a couple of times.  This Cyrano was flying along the river on the way into New Buffalo Marsh yesterday.

 The brown and green patterning of the thorax and the way the frons ("nose" area) protrudes out from the face are ID points.

This is Rainbow Bluet, a tiny damselfly with attractive coloring that grades from orange in the face to yellow underneath and green above to blue at the very end of the tail

 Those last 2 (and the Cobra clubtail) are Rhoda's pics.

Finally proof that I haven't forgotten entirely about birds, a Common Yellowthroat trying to take eat some of its share of the local fly population.