Where Rivers Flow North

Crossing a great divide. / © Bryan Pfeiffer

Need I say more? I crossed somewhere in western Ontario. And when I reached the Manitoba-Saskatchewan frontier, I met up with great swarms of dragonflies. They drifted in cities, along ponds, and in little parks where I stopped for picnics. They were flying on the way to, well, who knows where they were headed. A few headed into my net.

I sampled about a dozen on Sunday, each a Variable Darner (Aeshna interrupta). They’re even in the parking lot here at the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where I’ll be attending the annual meeting of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas. Actually, they’re everywhere, which I’m told is customary in July.

Up here the thorax stripes on this species are just that – stripes. At home back east they’re interrupted. That first shot below was from Yorkton, Saskatchewan yesterday; the second is from a bog in Burke, Vermont, last summer.

By the way, the birding in the Saskatchewan Prairie this morning was a sparrow spectacle. You know you’re not in Vermont anymore when you visit some farmland at dawn and the first bird you hear is not a Song Sparrow but rather a Le Conte’s Sparrow. Stay tuned for more on that. Oh, and to catch up, that bottom shot is my very own swimming spot on Lake Superior north of Wawa, Ontario, on Friday night. (Days are long up here.)