Spring is here! Time for spring training and materials!

We have official reports of both dragonflies and damselflies now that it has officially warmed up. With both Common Green Darners (Anax junius) and Eastern Forktails (Ischnura verticalis), we are well on our way to seeing some cool things!

There are lots of upcoming events happening. This Thursday (April 26) we are having a spring training for central Ohio residents. If you can’t make it, (or even if you can), I also recommend registering for Odo-Con-18 on June 22-24, which will be our largest Odonata themed event in the state. We hope everyone has fun at our events and learns something new. These events are also times to get supplies and meet with regional coordinators. We have identification resources, species lists, maps, and collection materials for those who request it in advance.

We have started our press release push, with articles in The Dispatch and Cleveland.com. If you know anyone at your local newspaper who might be interested in publishing an article on the survey, let us know. We have a statewide press release available, and we can write articles directed towards specific regions. We also have a variety of information handouts including general survey background, a wanted poster, Swift Setwing Factsheet, and Hine’s Emerald Factsheet.

To get you started for the year, I wanted to point out several changes to our website. We have updated all county list pages that are broken down by geographic region. (Central, Northeastern, Northwestern, Southeastern, and Southwestern). You can view the list of known species by county, but also the species documented in neighboring counties that have yet to be found. This is a good way to target groups and rack up county records [update: all county lists are now found on a single page].

We also updated all species range maps with the help of thousands of observations submitted via iNaturalist last year. These species range maps are available in an annotated pdf that prints off well in grey-scale. For those curious, we also have flight distribution charts to help you learn when to look for species that are either early, mid, or late season fliers [update: flight distribution charts are now combined with the range maps into a single PNG graphic file].

Finally, I have made a printable all Ohio Dragonfly Checklist (as pdf or Excel) and an All Ohio Damselfly Checklist (as pdf or Excel). These can be used in the field or at home to get excited about finding other species. Think you have found a threatened or endangered species? Let us know!

– We are up to 85 registered attendees for Odo-Con in June! If you haven’t registered, there is still time, but we are capped at 125 attendees.

– Interested in joining other natural projects? There is a new Ohio Tiger Beetle group on iNaturalist! There are several really cool species of these shiny, predatory beetles (and a few endangered ones) that you might encounter while looking for dragonflies and damselflies. The Ohio Bee Atlas is also looking for more observations of bees on flowers, so don’t be afraid to turn your cameras from dragons to beetles to bees and back again.

Let us know if you have any questions and happy searching!

-MaLisa Spring