[Odonata-l] [se-odonata] Little Big Day, Horry County, SC

[Dennis Paulson]

Hal,

Thanks for the info. That certainly bears out what I have observed  
over many years of being interested in odonate biodiversity. The  
northeastern United States is a very rich area indeed, with well- 
studied localities ending up with impressively large species lists  
when you add in the seasonal and year-to-year changes. It would be  
interesting to see more of these numbers.

I looked through my field notes for Florida visits in the last 8  
years. I visited the state in Jun 04, Apr 05, Dec 07, and Apr 08. My  
largest list for a site visit was 16 species in the panhandle, 13 on  
the peninsula. I saw 18 species in an entire day in Everglades  
National Park, 19 in an entire day in the Big Cypress area. There is  
a peninsula effect in Florida, with species diversity decreasing down  
the peninsula, but even in the far north, you don't see high  
diversity at a single site. By way of contrast, in South Carolina in  
May we found in the high 20s at several localities, although it was  
with several carloads of people looking rather than just me, so that  
could play a large part in the difference. Nevertheless, the typical  
biodiversity gradient of more species at lower latitudes seems to be  
absent, if not reversed, for odonates along the Atlantic states of  
the US, a rather unusual situation.

I'm posting this also to other listserves, as it may be of wider  
interest.

Dennis

On Aug 12, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Hal White wrote:

> Dennis, My record for one site in one day is 41 species back in the  
> 1960's at Ponkapoag Pond just south of Boston. There have been a  
> number of times in the northeast US when I have encountered >30  
> species in one day at one stop. Certainly that was the case at Ten  
> Acre Pond in central PA. I'll have to go back to my field records  
> for the details, if you are interested. The East is quite different  
> than the western US. If I don't see 20 species at some places here,  
> it is unusual. Hal
>
> On Aug 12, 2008, at 8:36 AM, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>> That is interesting, Chris. I kept a daily record in the month I  
>> spent at Explorer's Inn, in southern Peru, and my biggest one-day  
>> list was 41 species, all within walking distance of the lodge.  
>> Most days were in the 25-35 range. But by driving all over the  
>> countryside in an area that had a good diversity of wetlands,  
>> surely you could find more than 50 species. In Washington, one of  
>> the poorest if not the poorest state for odonates in the Lower 48,  
>> I know I've seen up to a little over 30 species in a day (total  
>> state list 80).
>> If I record 20 or more species on one visit to a single spot  
>> (typically no more than an hour or two), I consider it a great  
>> odonate site. I just skimmed through my field notes for the last  
>> few years and found a stream in southern Sonora, Mexico, where a  
>> small group of us observed 38 species in one two-hour visit. I  
>> wouldn't be surprised if that was my biggest total ever from a  
>> single visit, as finding even 20 species doesn't happen all that  
>> often. That area is quite rich, as another stream in the same  
>> region yielded 35 species in three hours. /Argia/ was a big  
>> contributor, with 13 species at each site. The richness of that  
>> area is illustrated by the fact that only 5 of those /Argia/ were  
>> found at both sites. The reason at least in part is because they  
>> were rather different sorts of streams, the first at 1800 feet,  
>> the second at 4550 feet elevation.
>> It would be interesting to collect records of single site visits  
>> all around the world (well, at least in the Southeast) that  
>> tallied more than 30 species. During our southeastern DSA meeting  
>> this spring, we tallied more than 20 species at several sites but  
>> didn't reach 30.
>> Dennis
>> On Aug 12, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Chris Hill wrote:
>>> Back in South Carolina after a summer away, I decided to try an  
>>> odonate "big day" in my home county, and recruited Gary Phillips  
>>> to join me, which meant, as a bonus, there was someone along who  
>>> could identify butterflies. The idea was to see as many species  
>>> as possible in one day, just like a birding big day, but without  
>>> any pesky rules. I made up a list of what we might find where,  
>>> and even divided it into categories like "will get (can't  
>>> possibly miss)," "should get," "might get," probably can't get"  
>>> and "impossible (spring flying species)." I figured we'd most  
>>> likely see somewhere between 30 and 50 species, depending on how  
>>> many of the "might get" species we could track down.
>

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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