Well, it’s that time of year again, the start of year 4 of my Dragonfly Swarm Project data collection! Things have gotten a fairly slow start so far this year. Swarms reported so far in 2013 include…
USA:
Smyrna, DE
Coral Springs, FL
St. Millis, MA
Arapahoe, NC
James City, NC
Otisfield, ME
Norfolk, VA
Brinnon, WA
Canada:
Alberta
Argentina:
Buenos Aires
Peru:
Lima
Canary Islands:
Punta Mujures, Lanzarote
Latvia
As you can see, swarms have occurred all over the world! I think that’s exciting. On the other hand, there haven’t been very many reports made yet. It makes me wonder if people just haven’t been seeing as many this year so far (I haven’t seen any yet!) or fewer people are making reports this year. It’s impossible to tell of course, but these are the kinds of things I like to ponder. There have also been some really big storms along the east coast over the last few months, a lot of flooding, and those could be contributing to the slow start.
This year I’m going to include maps of the weekly North American swarms on Swarm Sunday. Here’s the map for 2013 so far (click to make bigger):
1/1/13 – 7/6/13
The red pins are static swarms and the blue pins are migratory swarms. The map isn’t all that exciting yet, but you can see that all but one of the locations so far has been coastal. I suspect that most activity reported thus far has been related to the dragonflies moving north for the season, their movements from wherever in South or Central America they overwinter to their summer hunting and breeding grounds in the US and Canada. Hopefully, now that the dragonflies are well dispersed throughout their summer habitats, we’ll start to see more swarming soon!
Until next week! And keep looking out for those swarms. Every little bit of information helps!
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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 
Now I know what I’ve seen the past two summers in the cove with the great blue heron, thanks to you: feeding dragonfly swarms! I had no idea what was going on with the hundreds of dragonflies swirling and circling about, butit hey kept the heron busy, trying to catch them. I haven’t seen any this year, but summer is still young.
Awesome! That would be amazing to see! Glad I could help.
Thanks. Will see if I can find the photos to share with you.
Thanks!