Well, it’s that time of year again! Swarms have already started popping up in the US, even though it’s still pretty early to have them. Here’s the swarms that have been reported since the beginning of the year:
USA:
San Diego, CA
Boynton Beach, FL
Brandon, FL
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Brazil:
Florianopolis, Santa Catarina
South Africa:
Secunda, Mpumalanga
And here is the US map for the first three months of 2015:
Red pins are static swarms, yellow pins are migratory. Click the map to enlarge!
Though there haven’t been a huge number of swarms reported yet, there was a little flurry of activity this week in Florida with two static swarms and one migratory swarm reported. I also heard about another Florida swarm on Facebook. The migratory swarm in San Diego was exciting (at least if you’re me!) as it’s fairly unusual to get those sorts of mass migrations in the western US outside of the variegated meadowhawk migration in Washington and Oregon each fall. I was very excited about the reports from Brazil and South Africa as they add two new countries to the list of countries where swarms have been reported and bring the total up close to 30 now. All in all, 2015 is already shaping up to be an interesting year!
I have started seeing a few green darners in North Carolina so far, but nothing else yet. Here’s hoping there will be a lot more dragonflies out and about soon!
_______________
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!
_______________
Want more information? Visit my dragonfly swarm information page for my entire collection of posts about dragonfly swarms!
_______________
The Dragonfly Woman 
Hi DFW! So appreciate your emails! Always fascinating!
I note you are requesting swarm reports. I sent one in from Jordan MN last year but never did see it mentioned. Where would I go to see it?
Thanks!
Tammy Scott
>
Hmmm… I got really behind on my reports last year and still haven’t gotten all of the 2014 reports up, however I also don’t see your report in my database. Did you send it to me by e mail or through the form? I want to find it if I can! And I’ll get the 2014 reports online eventually. It just takes a long time to do them and I have a big backlog of them still…
At first I thought you were talking about bee swarms! I’ve never seen a dragonfly swarm. What should we look for?
Groups of dragonflies flying in obvious and cohesive groups AWAY from water. You’ll know it when you see it!
I’ve been watching for this. Haven’t even seen any dragonflies yet.
There was a huge migratory dragonfly swarm at Holden Beach NC on Monday July 13th 2015 at about 4 PM or so. We were on the beach when suddenly hundreds of thousands of dragonflies swarmed along the beach from East to West for a little over 5 minutes. It was incredible and a little scary to witness. They did not run in to us but swarmed all around us. Send me an email if you would like to discuss it in more detail. It was unbelievable.
Excellent! Will definitely e mail you about what you saw.