Our good fortune with the Virginia weather continues.
With a day to ourselves, I came up with a cunning plan. In the middle-ish of Richmond is the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Just south of that, on the southern side of the James River, is a park where I’d seen a number of dragonfly sightings reported. My plan was to take Francine to see the art works while the day was warming up, then repair to the park to see if we could find some November Odonata.
We managed to find the museum’s parking garage [$6] and found that the museum itself had no admission charge. We began exploring.
One of the main attractions here is what was a private collection [Pratt collection], now bequeathed to the museum, of Fabergé jewellery. Surely the pieces of most interest and fascination must be five of the Fabergé Easter eggs.The workmanship and attention to detail is truly astounding. This is the Red Cross Egg with Imperial Portraits.
After the sanity of Fabergé, we inevitably strayed into the more modern art works. These generally fall into the category of completely inexplicable, to me, anyway, a self-confessed artistic numbskull. What I do find entertaining, though, is the complete bollocks spouted by the artists attempting to “explain” their work. Here’s an example. Passage to India? Go figure.
Here is a another very odd example. This is actually a 3D work, I believe made of chunks of leather sewn together. The explanation had me rolling with laughter. At least this is Untitled. I mean, seriously, would you hang this on your wall? All artists must be taught how to come up with pseudo-intellectual descriptions.
I’ll stick with the Fabergé. We left the so-called artworks [personally, I think they’re all having a laugh], went to the museum’s café for some lunch and then left for a possible Odonata hunt.
We headed to the south side of the James River and the Pony Pasture Trail, where there is a rough car park. It was well used but there was plenty of space. I’d seen two locations worth investigating. The first was the rocky banks of the river itself where there had been several sightings of a couple of delightful American damselflies. My first approach was successful; a Smoky Rubyspot (Hetaerina titia) was perched on the first collection of rocks that I investigated. It was reasonably approachable, too.
A little further upstream another Rubyspot was perched on another rock and posing for the camera. Without the smoky wingtip, I was hoping that this would prove to be the American Rubyspot (Hetaerina americana). I need to wait to get other opinions, though.
We walked along to a second area of interest, a wetland area. Here there had been observations of two darters, which Americans refer to as Meadowhawks. I was hoping that I might see the Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum) but alas, it was not to be. This was my third piece of habitat where I drew a blank. The water was very low – the area needs rain – which may have been partly to blame. I was content with my Rubyspots, though.
A new book has been published on the “Dragonflies of North America”. One UK source that I use has it “available for pre-order” but I could find no expected date when it might become available. What I did find was that it is available already on Amazon in the States. So, I got it ordered to be delivered here, today, using our friend’s prime account.
It was here when we arrived back from our excursion and I was eager to check the identity of my new damselflies. As soon as I opened the book I got a bit of a shock.
There is no doubting the quality of the book’s production. Whereas my existing volumes [there are two] on American species are photographic, this new book uses illustrations with identification pointers. It is the first time I’ve ever seen illustrations to rival the quality of those drawn by Richard Lewington. I quickly realized that this book has a precisely accurate title, however.
Odonata comprises both Anisoptera and Zygoptera; Zygoptera being the damselflies and Anisoptera being the dragonflies. Increasingly in our modern, somewhat dumbed-down world however, “dragonflies” is often used to encompass both sub-orders, in other words to be a synonym of Odonata. That confusion requires another common term, “true dragonflies”, to mean the Anisoptera. [No, I don’t like it.]
My first glance in my new book made me realize that it did, indeed, perfectly accurately cover ONLY the dragonflies and NOT the damselflies. Given the modern parlance, it was not what I expected. I can only hope that a second companion volume my be produced, but I won’t hold my breath.
So, beautiful book though it is, I’ll still need another source to verify my new damselflies.
Recent Comments