Flying Adder?

Charlie, this looks like it is about to splat on the front of your lens!! Cool perspective!

Can't help on the ID Charlie, I struggle myself when it comes down to it..
Details looks great, hard to catch em' head-on like this

Neat perspective Charlie - shows wing position and angle well.

Well Lon this DF was more concerned about the many bluegills that watch it's every move to nail it when depositing eggs. But I'll watch out for flying spit.

From a distance I watched this DF touching the water and noticed where it hovered most. Set things up for rapid burst exposures and high ISO and focused on it's most prominent spot. I got many exposure and some others that were pretty good but as you mention Ron this had the best wing positions and relative sharpness. Thanks for comments.

These mosaic darners are always tough to identify but whatever it is this is a nice shot. I've done a lot of odonate shooting myself and I know how hard it is to catch them on the wing. Only suggestion would be to push the exposure a bit as overall it seems a little too dark.

Really nice job stopping this guy in flight Charlie, the light looks a little bit harsh but a cool shot.

Actually he was hovering when this was shot. I don't think I'll ever get one of these in real flight.

Charlie

Holy Cow Charlie, this is great! I don't do a whole lot of DF shooting these days, but I have done some, and I know how hard flight shots are. To get a sharp head-on view like this, with so much in focus it truly amazing. Congratulations!

About the ID -- I hope this helps. I am not familiar with western species, but from what I know of spiketails (family Cordulegastridae) this does not look like one (algthough it's not easy to tell from one shot at this angle). Cordulegaster (and all members of this family) do not have the "football helmet" compound eyes typical of darners and other dragonflies. Their eyes are thinner, narrowing down almost to a point where they meet at the top of the head. This is the main ID feature of the family. Also, your story sounds like this one was ovipositing in the water. Cordulegaster (at least the eastern species, but probably others) has a unique way of laying eggs: They hover vertically, in a head-up position, and thrust their tails into shoreline mud -- rapidly up and down, kind of looking like a sewing machine.

Offhand, I think I would start looking for matches in the family Aeschnidae (darners) if I saw this in the east, but again, I am not familiar with your western critters, so it might be something else. Spiketails are pretty distinctive, though -- and from this angle it just doesn't look like one. I could be wrong, so look at your other shots and the behavior you saw, to see if it matches the family discription above. All US spiketails are in the genus Cordulegaster. Good luck.

Wayne, I see what you mean about the eyes. The picture of the Western Flying Adder, cordulegaster are indeed significantly smaller. Thanks for all that info. I need to get a more complete guide. Do you know of a good one or do you use a website. Likely you learned over the years and have most of the knowledge already on file in you brain . I was able to catch some type of DF depositing eggs along the shore line of the pond and flying, head upright, with ovipositer dipping into the water and splashing water (possible with eggs) onto a rock. Although as you mentioned the splash of water may have just been a result of it's action in depositing eggs into mud. I posted this a month or two ago.

Charlie, I have been a bug person for over half a century, but nobody is an expert on all insects -- there are just too many.
I use a collection of books I collected over they years as a student and later as a researcher. Many of them are rather specific to a single order or family of insects, with some being limited geographically, too. For instance, my main Odonata reference is a guide to the Odonata of Massachusetts. (Close enough to NY to cover what I find. Maybe there is a similar resource for western Odonata?) My most comprehensive and very used book for keying out unfamiliar insects to family is sort of the bible of Entomology, Borror and DeLong's Introduction to the Study of Insects. It's kind of technical, with basic ID relying on a knowledge of insect morphology (body parts), but there is a chapter on that if you really want to get into it. It's also an expensive book, with used copies going for about $75, and new ones twice that price.

While looking up current prices of Borror and DeLong, I noticed that there is a much less expensive book co-authored by Borror, A Field Guide to Insects: America North of Mexico [Paperback] which is one of the Peterson Field Guides. Sounds interesting, but I have not seen it, so I can't comment further. Read the reviews and see if it sounds like what you are looking for.

IMHO, unless you are dealing with a few hundred "popular" insects, you can be led astray easily in ID unless you first figure out what ORDER the insect is in, and second, find out what FAMILY it is in. (Your experience with this dragonfly illustrates that it's easy to be led astray basing ID on overall appearance instead of key features that separate the families.) With that in mind, I did the following search.

WEB SITES: I just spent a fun half-hour looking at what's there.

-- First, I Googled "odonata family key" and the first site I found was Key to CALIFORNIA DRAGONFLIES & DAMSELFLIES (Odonata) at http://sonic.net/~bigsnest/Pond/dragons/CA_key.html. Looks like just what western Odonata entusiast need! Give it a try.

-- Next, for more basic info for ALL insects, I googled "insect order key" because knowing what order the insect is in is the most important part of insect ID. Here are a couple of sites I found after a very shor search that look like they may be more useful than the big, technical books:

http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/orders.htm -- Very good basic info -- read the introductory parts! -- good for basic understanding of the scientific classification of all plants and animals.

http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/classes/bio462/easykey.html -- Easy Key to the Insect Orders. This looks like a basic, but very useful resource with good examples and drawings.

I can't thank you enough for all that information. I have only read your post here and have not yet checked into the sites and books but will be, starting tonight. The last two years I have taken a lot (for me) photos of insects at overnight lights on our garage walls and have gotten a lay person interest. I have numerous Nat. Audobon Soc.field guides and Peterson bird guides but as you well know a novice picking up these guides occassionally does not provide the answers we seek when we don't even know how to start (as in this DF). It is really enjoyable when I can ID one of my photos but there are so many that I don't get close.

Thanks again.

Charlie