Ohio Dragonfly Survey (Ohio Odonata Survey)

Hi everyone!

Despite the snow, spring is on its way. Soon we shall see our first Odes for the season and we can really start documenting!

We have been busy getting things ready for the season, but there are now county species lists on the webpage. They are broken down by region, so it should be easy to find your county(ies) of interest. Each county list also includes a separate list of species found in neighboring counties that you might expect to find in your county (and thus get a county record).

There are a few upcoming events that I also want to highlight.

Upcoming Events:
April 7th - Museum Open House (Columbus, Ohio) - Great for kids and adults!
April 12th - Marietta Natural History Society Dragonfly Presentation (Ricky Science Center - Marietta, Ohio)
April 13th - Spruce Run Bioblitz (Galena, Ohio)
April 26th - Central Ohio Training (Columbus, Ohio) - covers identification basics, photography, ecology, and how to use iNaturalist.

Mini Blitzes Planned: Please reach out to MaLisa at spring.99@osu.edu if you are interested in joining these small group trips. These are all planned to be overnight trips to get the highest amount of field time to find Odes. Logistics for these mini-blitzes are still developing, but we plan to have a central meeting place (likely wherever we are staying) and then drive to various promising habitats.
May 23-25 - Belmont and surrounding counties - based out of Bark Camp State Park, MaLisa plans to go to local public access areas and record as many species as possible.
June 12th and 13th - Meigs Co blitz - Coordinated by MaLisa Spring, Jim McCormac, and Bob Glotzhober. We will be down in Meigs County to document as many species as possible on public and private land. If you want to join us for the main part of the blitz, please reach out to MaLisa Spring. Otherwise, there is a public field walk at the Meigs Co SWCD Conservation Area at 5:30 PM.
July 7-8 - Duckweed Firetail Blitz in Southern Ohio - led by MaLisa Spring, Jim McCormac, and Bob Glotzhober. Join us as we try to find a new state record and other cool Odonata including, but not limited to the Interior Least Clubtail, and Uhler's Sundragon.

Other updates:
- New blog post with detailed updates
- Ohio Odonata Society paid members should have received the Dragonflier from Steve Chordas. If not, let me know and I will try to get that to you.
- We are up to 75 registered attendees for Odo-Con in June! If you haven't registered, there is still time, but we are capped at 125 attendees.
- Interested in joining other projects? There is a new Ohio Tiger Beetle group on iNaturalist! There are several really cool species of these shiny, predatory beetles (and a few endangered ones) that you might encounter while looking for dragonflies and damselflies. The Ohio Bee Atlas is also looking for more observations of bees on flowers, so don't be afraid to turn your cameras from dragons to beetles to bees and back again.

Thanks again for everyone who has helped so far. We couldn't do this without all of you. Together, we are getting a better understanding of our natural world! less ↑