Common Green Darners Ovipositing

On May 18, 2012 in Inyo County, California, Ron & Barbara Oriti (& David Welling) were in the Big Pine area when they witnessed a MIGRATORY EVENT: It involved Common Green Darners, Anax junius.

A quote from them: …it was quite a sight seeing a couple of hundred+ big darners flying across the road in the middle of the desert. Sorry - no photos of the migration - moving too fast and too random. …. The migration was around 2:00 PM along the road to Eureka Dunes at about 6000+ foot elevation. We stopped and watched the common greens fly across the road over a 1/4+ stretch of the road for at least 15 minutes and they were still coming when we left. All were heading almost due north. We also found a few stragglers along the highway heading back to 395 so it was a pretty broad front of dragons. Day was clear, no wind and about 72 degrees where we were.

In a phone call to me (Kathy Biggs), they mentioned seeing about 15-20 Odes at a time and conservatively estimated that they saw 100s, with Gliders (Pantala) flying below the Anax junius. The next day they reported finding a few Green Darners still flying at a lower elevation; then soon after that they found maybe 60 pairs ovipositing at Klondike Lake which is an alkali sink north of Big Pine. They were not present (at least in such #s) prior to this or after this, nor did they find Green Darners at the summit again.

Below are four images of the darners tandem ovipositing at Klondike Lake: