New Hampshire: Any Old Beaver Pond

Eileen has always wanted to see more of Canada, and with all my jaunts to different corners of the world there's a lot of my own country I haven't seen myself.  To partially correct this state of affairs we decided to take a motor trip east, to the Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  With our friends Kam Chuen Lau and Cynthia Chew - both ex-Malaysians - we set off  for the drive to Fredericton, New Brunswick on May 27, 2012.

Though this was meant to be a tour of eastern Canada we started out by driving through the northeastern United States, through Vermont and New Hampshire to Maine, before crossing the border again into New Brunswick.  The breeding season was under way in the northern New England woods, and birds like this Chestnut-sided Warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica) sang all around us.

The chief attraction of the little town of North Conway, New Hampshire, is not its natural setting but its collection of outlet malls (there is no sales tax in New Hampshire).  While Cynthia, Lau and Eileen browsed the stores, I drove back north of town in search of a likely dragonfly spot - any old beaver pond would do.  A friendly chat with an elderly couple directed me to a likely example, where I spent a pleasant forty minutes or so poking about the pond edge.

I found at least three dragonflies, including a Common Green Darner (Anax junius) that refused to pose for my camera and a Chalk-fronted Corporal (Ladona julia) that did.

Much more interesting to me was a dragonfly that cruised slowly back and forth over the water, never perched, but allowed me a few more or less acceptable flight shots.  Its blue eyes and orange-spotted abdomen identify it as one of the baskettails (Epitheca sp.).  Baskettails are emeralds (Corduliidae), a family I have rarely encountered and had never photographed before.  Identifying them to species isn't easy (and may be impossible without close examination of the genitalia), but the rather thick, straight abdomen on this one makes it at least possible that this is a Common Baskettail (E. cynosura).

The three dragonflies were matched by an equal number of damselflies.  These are Aurora Damsels (Chromagrion conditum), members of the only species in its genus.  Though members of the large family Coenagrionidae, they perch with their wings slightly open, rather like spreadwings (Lestidae).

This is another coenagrionid, one of the bluets (Enallagma sp.).  Like the baskettails bluets can be very difficult to tell apart, but I am going to take a stab at it: I think this is a female Slender Bluet (Enallagma traviatum), on the grounds that the black streak across its shoulders (the humeral stripe) is very narrow.

This little damsel is much easier to name: a male Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita). 

While watching the dragonflies and damselflies, I startled a brood of Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) with their mother.  They splashed out into the pond, and then, their nerves presumably calmed, the family swam slowly away into the open water.

On the edge of an islet in the pond I found a large and corpulent Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) basking on a log.  Its orange throat makes for a distinctive identification mark.  Blanding's has one of the most northerly distributions of any turtle, mostly north and west of the Great Lakes; animals in southern New Hampshire are part of an isolated New England population.  Like many turtles Blanding's is an endangered species; it is threatened by habitat loss and illegal collecting for the pet trade, and is particularly susceptible to being killed on roadways while en route to its nesting sites.

As I walked around to the far side of the pond, I came across a rather tattered Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma)...

and a sight I usually only expect to see in the tropics, a mob of butterflies gathering, or kettling, on the ground in search of mineral salts.

In the tropics you can sometimes find dozens of butterfly species kettling together, but here only one was involved: these are Canadian Tiger Swallowtails (Papilio canadensis).  

When I was young, entomologists usually included all the tiger swallowtails of eastern North America in a single species (though the Canadian Tiger was recognised as long ago as 1906).  Today the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail is not only separated from the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (P. glaucus) but the two are known to occur together (and sometimes to hybridise) where their ranges meet. The easiest way to tell them apart is to look at the underside of the wing.  The Eastern Tiger has a row of yellow spots near the edge of the forewing, but in the Canadian Tiger these are fused into a continuous yellow band.  These photos show the band clearly, making these Canadian Tigers.  

From here I drove back to town to pick up the shoppers.  I will leave it to readers to decide which of us had the better time!