I’m off to a bit of a slow start, because of life getting in the way, but the Doctor and I are going to explore tomorrow in a place that I haven’t been in years and he never has. Moreover, it’s one of the many areas along the Front Range that are woefully undocumented. So, while my main focus is going to be dragons and damsels (c’mon Mountain Emerald!), I’m planning to take a whole bunch of observations.
I also ended up with damselflies on both thumbnails while testing out some new nail polish. Y’know; just for luck.
I didn’t know about this, but I’ve fallen completely in love with Odonata this year — I’ve observed a couple dozen species just around the pond of our yard so far. So I’ll be doing as much as I can these last few days! Thanks for the heads up!
I confess I’ve no idea what you are talking about and so initially – I think understandably – interpreted ‘doctor’ as your medical practitioner. I can’t tell you what array of bizarre interpretations went through my mind when you said that you and he “are going to explore a place that I haven’t been in years and he never has” but suffice to say they mostly involved endoscopes. By the time I reached the bit about dragons and damsels, I figured I was definitely barking up the wrong tree.
Anyway, enjoy it! (whatever ‘it’ is – still not sure I’m entirely clear)
You’re welcome! This is my second year participating, and it’s really helped boost my knowledge of local species.
I wasn’t sure that it was going to happen this year, either. It’s a month later than the 2022 event, so that may pose a problem with documenting species that are usually at the end of their flight time by now. On the other hand, you don’t know how accurate a species’ accepted flight periods are until you go looking for them at a time that’s outside the accepted months. One thing I love about odes; no matter how much you know about them, they can still surprise you.
Basically, Odolympics is a week-long, order-specific Bioblitz. Photograph and document as many species as possible, with an estimate of the numbers at a location. The Doctor is my fiance; Ph. D in biostatistics in this case, although he used to be a medic in the USAF, and an ED tech for a while in the civillian world. We’re also both science fiction fans; so it’s also a reference to the long-running series Doctor Who. (And that way, I get to call myself The Doctor’s Companion.)
Large parts of the Colorado Front Range outside the urban corridor are blank slates as far as iNat species documentation is concerned, and the area where we went today is one of those spots. Deckers is on the South Platte River. My dad had taken me trout fishing there when I was a teen. An intense forest fire had burned through the forest since; 21 years later, there are still visible fire scars. It’s beautiful anyway. No dragonflies were out because we’re having an unseasonal chill, but I still managed to get some flowering plants.
Yeah, it might be getting a little late in the flight season for many species, not that late August is necessarily bad for odonate activity. Depends where you are. There was probably more diversity a couple of weeks ago, especially for higher elevations and latitudes, and while it was still blazing hot.
Ahaa, I’m with you now My brain hadn’t worked out any of the abbreviations odo(nata), dragon(flies) or damsel(flies), so I was under the impression you were going to some kind of wacky outdoor PokemonGo-meets-ComicCon type event (I supposed Mount Emerald was some kind of fantasy world I’m not au fait with) and you were just planning to do some iNatting on the side!
@whaichi, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Worldwide Dragonfly Association, but the link to their resources page that I just posted lists groups in your part of the globe.
Nothing South Korea-specific, unfortunately; I’m not certain whether that means that there isn’t a group, or that nobody’s submitted a link for the group’s website. I have a feeling that it might be the former, since I wasn’t able to turn anything up with a country-specific search. That’s seems to me to be a rather glaring oversight, since there are 95 odonate species recorded for South Korea.
Basically, Odolympics is a week-long, order-specific Bioblitz. Photograph and document as many species as possible, with an estimate of the numbers at a location. The Doctor is my fiance; Ph. D in biostatistics in this case, although he used to be a medic in the USAF, and an ED tech for a while in the civillian world. We’re also both science fiction fans; so it’s also a reference to the long-running series Doctor Who. (And that way, I get to call myself The Doctor’s Companion.)
My brain hadn’t worked out any of the abbreviations odo(nata), dragon(flies) or damsel(flies), so I was under the impression you were going to some kind of wacky outdoor PokemonGo-meets-ComicCon type event (I supposed Mount Emerald was some kind of fantasy world I’m not au fait with) and you were just planning to do some iNatting on the side!