Obviously Friday 5 didn’t happen last week (long story), but Swarm Sunday is here!  Swarms occurred in the following locations over the past week:

USA:

Arvada, CO
Boulder,  CO
Calhan, CO
Denver, CO
Atlantic Highlands, NJ
Long Branch, NJ
Old Bridge Township, NJ
New York, NY
New Kent, VA

Canada:

Moosejaw, SK (2 reports)

The activity still seems to be centered over Colorado, where there are several big fires burning, and the New Jersey/New York area.  I’m going to be interested to see whether the swarms keep forming in the Colorado area, especially as this popped up on one of the Facebook page for one of the local news channels in Colorado Springs this morning:

 

Now that’s impressive!  And this is an interesting swarm too.  First, it’s a darner species that very few people report in swarms (Aeshna sp., likely interrupta), so it’s not the typical Colorado swarm that’s been reported in the past.  Second, and more interestingly, this swarm occurred at NIGHT!  Colorado is one of the only places where I’ve ever gotten a report of a night flying swarm like this since I’ve started collecting data, so it makes me wonder what might be causing these strange swarms there.  Could the last night flying swarm possibly have been related to a fire too?  That swarm was made up of hundreds to thousands of common green darners (Anax junius), so it was a little different from this one, but night flying swarms like these are rather uncommon.  This is all pure speculation, of course, but it’s interesting to think about.   Very interesting!

I wanted to end this week with a video submitted by a swarm reporter in Illinois:

If any of you want to have videos of swarms you’ve recorded featured here, I’d be happy to post them (assuming they’re kid friendly)!  Just send me the link or post it on my Facebook page and I’ll add them here as I receive them.

Keep looking out for swarms everyone!  It could be a very interesting year.

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Have you seen a dragonfly swarm? I am tracking swarms so I can learn more about this interesting behavior.  If you see one, I’d love to hear from you!  Please visit my Report a Dragonfly Swarm page to fill out the official report form.  It only takes a few minutes! Thanks!

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Want more information? Visit my dragonfly swarm information page for my entire collection of posts about dragonfly swarms!

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