It’s Sunday, so it’s time once again for Swarm Sunday! This week, dragonfly swarms were reported from the following locations:
USA:
Auburn, MA
Floral Park, NY
Lindenhurst, NY
Manhasset, NY
Austin, TX
Canada:
Russell, MB
And the map for this week:
7/7/13 – 7/13/13
The red pins are static swarms and the blue pins are migratory swarms, and you can click on the image to make it larger. The swarms are oddly spread out so far this year, rather than occurring in clumps the way they normally do. Honestly, I don’t know why, though many the reports coming in have reported severe storms or rains after several weeks of very hot, dry weather. It wouldn’t surprise me if these weather events were involved in the swarming activity. There has been really strange weather in a lot of places this year and it will be interesting to see if the dragonfly swarming we see will reflect the odd weather. For example, here in Raleigh we’ve had endless rain, flooding, and heavy winds. Coincidentally, there are also conspicuous species missing from our pond. We have had very few green darners when we had dozens a year ago and I have only seen one of the gliders so far. I wonder if the abnormally rainy, cool weather has interfered with either the northward migration or the emergence of local nymphs from the water. If so, it may impact the swarming we’ll see this year. Interesting, very interesting!
That’s it for this week – short and sweet. Keep looking for those swarms!
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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 
Great blog! Found your blog at eremoblatta, and am loving your posts!
Thanks, and welcome! Hope I’m living up to the hype they gave me!
How many dragonflies does it take to make a swarm? This past weekend I’d seen no more than five dragonflies feeding during the morning, but they were gone within a half hour.
I usually set a cut off at 10 or 12, but honestly you can have a “swarm” of just 1 or 2 dragonflies if you know what to look for. Feel free to add your sighting to my database if you’d like! The report form can be found by hovering over the The Dragonfly Swarm Project link at the top of the page.