Leave only netprints, take only photos

That's how the day began. I headed out this morning to Acadia's lovely quiet side to sample dragonfly larvae in two ponds. It's awfully early in the season, but that's the point - I want to know if the dragonfly larvae are sampled as readily in all seasons of the year, and if the mercury concentrations in their bodies changes through the year.

All the work that teachers & students have been doing has led to a boatload of new questions. Students sample in the fall; what would happen in other seasons of the year? is just one of the intriguing questions that has spun off (and that I've been lucky to find funding to answer) this year. I sampled these ponds in late November - they were the last field work I did in 2011. And now I've sampled them in early April - my first field work of 2012.

It started out looking like early spring is NOT a good time to sample - which is a perfectly reasonable result. If that's the case, then we can narrow down the sampling season and make recommendations about when sampling is the best. At the first pond, where I found dragonfly larvae in November, I found none. There were damselflies, and a whole lot of mayfly nymphs (forehead slap - is THAT why they call them MAYflies - they are gearing up now to fly off soon?).

Then I headed to the second pond.

There was still ice on the water along the edges.

Nothing for a few minutes. Then suddenly - I had one!

if you were on the western side of MDI today and you heard a lone voice in the woods holler "We've got a ball game!!!", that was me. A few more followed - I ended up with 4 samples (fewer than I hoped, but better than none). I have 3 gomphids (perhaps Gomphus spicatus? I will have to ID them), and one that could be a Libellulid. All four are fairly large and wing pads were quite developed. Perhaps after a big spring meal they would have crept out of the water to emerge. Instead they will be the first subjects of our research in 2012.