It’s hard to quell an urge to run away. Sometimes you just want to get up and go. The trouble is, you can lose your reason for leaving the further away you get. The departure unfocuses and redefines you, a paradox of being human.
The Green Darner Dragonfly is unencumbered by such metaphysical consideration. He gets up and goes in style! A large, flashy insect with a green back, his blue belly looks purple when the dragonfly is cold. Green Darners are hard to miss, particularly so when they form swarms and head south in early autumn.
The Common Green Darner is one of just a few varieties of migratory dragonflies. Insect migration is still largely a biological mystery, and only recently have dragonfly travels been studied. What is known is that dragonflies migrate similarly to birds. Or rather, that birds migrate like dragonflies, since dragonflies predate birds by 140 million years. Like birds, it takes a couple of days of cool weather to inspire the bugs to move, and they do so in groups that sometimes number in the thousands. Sue Sturtevant and Cindy Cormier saw a terrific example of that one day last week as hundreds of green darners zoomed through the kitchen garden while they were having a meeting on the back porch. When I stopped by, the yard was teeming with flashing wings and aerial acrobatics.
Dragonflies use some of the same guides for navigation as birds, and in 1955 a hawk watcher named Frank Nicoletti observed that American Kestrels (a small and beautiful falcon) often migrate in groups along with the dragonflies. The kestrels use the dragonflies as travel snacks along the way, snatching them out of the sky for a quick meal.
There is still much to learn about the dragonfly odyssey. For example, the darner that flies south this fall will not return here in the spring. Instead, his progeny will make the trip, leaving him to procreate down south for another year. Thereafter, that same darner may come north again, switching places with his offspring. What controls that bi-annual trade-off is unknown. How do they know when to stay and when to go, and how to get there?
We begin to see that humans are not alone in yearning for a place of belonging. Migration is not homesickness, rather it seems to be an inexorable tug towards an indigenous fixed point. A turtle will cross a four-lane highway to return to it’s natal pond to breed. Birds, bats, frogs, turtles, insects all migrate. Monarch Butterfly migration has achieved celebrity status.
In people, wanderlust is abetted by business concerns, schools, jobs and such that send us off to points distant. Yet somehow, the throng of dragonflies in the kitchen garden the other day had the same feel as an airport or train station on the day before Thanksgiving. Perhaps we are more in visceral sympathy with nature than we realize.
See you on the trails,
Diane Tucker, Estate Naturalist
buggy hum, the drama of millions of insect stridulations was missing.
“Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck”
Tolerant bugs, but less so than the water penny, are dragonflies, damselflies, and caddisflies. They don’t care if some of their aquatic friends leave a few socks on the floor, figuratively speaking. Their water need only be “mostly” clean. And who is the Oscar Madison in the mix? Midges, mosquito larvae, pouch snails, worms and leeches are the true aquatic slobs. They’ll live in anything. Needing little oxygen or cleanliness, they are found in nutrient-rich environments, which sounds like a good thing but isn’t. “Nutrient-rich” is a way of saying not-enough-water-too-many-plants. It means that the body of water is eutrophied, or too shallow, so that light gets right to the bottom and makes a population explosion of plants which quickly eat up all the available oxygen. Few aquatic animals can make it there, save the leeches and their friends. 
A cicada has a lot of work to do before it can start looking for a mate. So it takes the better part of the summer to get rolling. Also, the soil needs to warm up enough to inspire them. They start out as eggs laid into twigs, but they soon fall to the earth and make their way underground, where they suck moisture out of the roots of trees as they mature. Some cicadas, known as periodical cicadas, spend over a decade in the ground. They can be a real nuisance when they all pop out of the ground at once. But the ones here in Farmington are the yearly kind, known as “dog-day harvestmen”. They just spend the winter sleeping under the soil. The “dog-day” part comes from the fact that you generally don’t become aware of them until summer is good and hot.
But it’s an addiction. Birds grab you that way and they don’t let go. Before you know it, you’re buying the funny hat and your shelf is full of birding books. And there’s more. Once the migration has trickled away and the resident nesting birds are raising young, suddenly butterflies start flitting around everywhere. Birders who know their resident birds don’t spend much time hunting them down during the summer, but they still have a pricey pair of binoculars. Butterflies are beautiful, winged and fun to chase around. They’re outdoors. What could be better for the grounded birder?
Association, who are coming out to do a walk here in July. Only yesterday on a short walk I counted Little Wood Satyr, Common Ringlet, Long Dash, Peck’s Skipper, Tiger Swallowtail, Pearl Crescent and Cabbage White. Earlier in the season were Mourning Cloaks and Tortoiseshells. As the weather progresses and different plants come out, the butterfly selection grows.
Again, you’re going to need a bunch of books, because these guys are small and sometimes the distinguishing marks are a little obscure. Not unlike warblers, just smaller. If you are like me, you’ll sometimes have to settle for enjoying their lovely colors. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll have a nice walk outside among wildflowers. And you can always set yourself down in the meadow and pour through your butterfly book in the sunshine and see if you can learn a new one. You can also join us on July 11 at 10 am for the butterfly walk. Personally, I can’t wait. And butterflies are so much easier on the neck.
