Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Odes in red, orange, and yellow

Rhoda and I spent most of the morning looking for Blue Grosbeak in the county.  We found a lot of Indigo Buntings, several Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and a Blue-winged Warbler.  No Blue Grosbeak though. 

There were Odes around though.  It's been a good year for Red Saddlebags, I caught my first one a few days ago so didn't swing at these.  Carolina Saddlebags looks very similar, apparently the black spots on the tip of the tail go all the way down in Carolina, in Red they just stay on top.  Currently Red Saddlebags outnumbers Black Saddlebags, though I'm sure the ratio will switch as the summer goes on.
Calico Pennant was another red ode we had today, though I'd gotten better pics previously.

I wasn't sure what this orangish one was initially.
 I was hoping it was a Painted Skimmer, but got a little concerned when I saw one that was paired up with a male 12-spotted Skimmer.  We took it back to the car to look it up.  Rhoda snapped these next two pics.
 It was a Painted Skimmer.  Almost all the Michigan records are from SE Michigan.  The much more common orange ode locally this time of year is Halloween Pennant.

Here's the female 12-Spotted, you can see why the male grabbed the wrong one.

Finally a clubtail that I didn't manage to net.  I'm pretty sure it's Midland Clubtail, though it's a huge family and they're all pretty similar.

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