I don’t know about you all, but I’m getting excited about the dragonfly migration! It’s only a couple of weeks away now and I’m fully prepared to drive out to the coast at a moment’s notice to see it firsthand this year. I expect it to be a life changing experience! Meanwhile, swarms occurred in the following locations over the past week:
USA:
Redding, CA
San Diego, CA
Clinton, CT
North Stonington, CT
West Suffield, CT
Wellington, FL
Troy, ID
Willbrook, IL
Ponchatoula, LA
Adams, MA
Burlington, MA
Halifax, MA
Medford, MA
Montgomery, MA
Palmer, MA
Peabody, MA
Saugus, MA
Denmark, ME
Houlton, ME
Raymond, ME
Cornlea, NE
Barrington, NH
Concord, NH
Deering, NH
Hollis, NH (2 reports)
Hopkinton, NH
Keene, NH
Louden, NH
Northwood, NH
Nottingham, NH
Rochester, NH
Strafford, NH
Thornton, NH
Wolfeboro, NH
Long Beach Island, NJ
Breesport, NY
Corning, NY
Eaton, NY
Freeport, NY
Ozone Park, NY
Jacksonville, NC
Hamilton, OH
Charlestown, RI
Westerly, RI
Copperas Cove, TX
Houston, TX
West Lake Hills, TX
Magna, UT
England:
London
The big excitement of the week: I get to add England to my list of countries where swarms have been reported! Of course, this means that my poster that I prepared for the Public Participation in Scientific Research conference is already out of date only two weeks later, but that’s one of the great things about citizen science – it’s incredibly dynamic. New discoveries can happen at any time, and I am always thrilled to add a new country to the list!
Otherwise, things have continued in New England as they have the last few weeks. New Hampshire comes out as the state with the most swarms reported this week with 15 swarms, with Maine, New York, and Connecticut all putting in a good showing. This isn’t the major swarming event I’ve come to expect at this time of year, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks as the migration starts up.
Next week’s Swarm Sunday might be a little late as I’m going to BugShot again this year and will be traveling back home on Sunday. I’ll do my best to get it up on time, but we’ll see how it goes. If it’s anything like last year, I don’t really expect to sleep at BugShot and will be returning home in a nearly comatose state. I’d also like to mention that if you happen to be in the Raleigh, NC area and are free Wednesday at 12:15 PM, I’m giving a talk about dragonfly migration in the Nature Research Center’s Daily Planet Theater at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. My talk will be a part of a series of talks about migration in animals that will run Tuesday – Friday. Should be fun!
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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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The Dragonfly Woman 
A swarm in London? Do you have any details about the swarm? I’d be interested to hear more about it (as it’s close to home for me)!
Also i wondered if you would read my most recent entry to my own blog (i rarely manage to write entries, and i would love your opinion). It has dragonflies, which might provide some incentive, although i don’t claim to be an expert such as you are! Don’t worry if you don’t find the time.
Jamie
It was a moderate sized swarm of about 60-80 individuals, all of one species, swarming in the reporter’s backyard outside of London proper. She reports that the weather has been warm and had alternated between rainy and dry and that they were visibly eating little flies as they swarmed. Pretty cool! That’s a really standard swarm, just like all the others, but in a new place. I’m excited by adding new countries because it indicates how widespread this behavior is, that many species in many areas participate in this sort of behavior and it isn’t restricted just to areas that have migrations.
Exciting about the swarm in London, I wonder what species it would be. There is a report of a massive swarm in Ireland in 1947, an irruption probably from Spain and Portugal. I have covered it today in Bugblog http://abugblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/migrant-common-darters.html
Cool! Will definitely have to check it out.
The person who made the London report didn’t say anything about the color or size of the dragonflies, so I have no idea which species they were. And thank you so much for the link to your blog post! I am so happy to have some new references and your blog post was great.