Whew. It’s the middle of summer and not only is it wretchedly hot but we’re also in drought conditions around here and have been for a while. So the birds have decided to go elsewhere since the swamp has mostly dried up and the crayfish–the favorite food for a lot of birds–are not as abundant as they usually are. In fact, I see very few crayfish. The herons, egrets, Wood Storks, and other swamp birds are simply nesting and foraging in other more watery locations. Which really makes my daily birding expeditions a bit frustrating.

There are still a few birds, notably Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, and Common Yellowthroats, but even the Prothonotary Warblers seem to have deserted us or at least have deserted the swamp. We’ve had a few rain storms but nothing that brings the water up to the levels we’re used to so while I’m usually seeing a lot of ibis and immature herons and egrets of all kinds fishing for crayfish in the runs, they just aren’t there. You know that the normal water levels are way down when you see bluebirds, grosbeaks, and buntings in areas where you normally see ibis and herons.

There are a few puddles here and there, however, so there are a few dragonflies and damselflies hovering around. There aren’t nearly as many as there have been in wetter years, but there are a few and I’m working on learning to identify them. While I use eBird for recording my bird observations, I’ve been using the iNaturalist site to record observations of everything else including plants, mushrooms, insects, mammals, and even a few birds. It’s a great resource and folks there are very helpful in assisting you to identify whatever you see, especially if you are just learning as I am.

There have been some absolutely gorgeous damselflies around even if the water is sparse in the swamp.

The lovely yellow Citrine Forktail is a fairly common visitor both in our yard near the pond and in the swamp. In the same areas, we have the Fragile Forktail with its “exclamation point” on its thorax. The Fragile Forktail is even more common than the Citrine Forktail and it seems to be the one I find most when I do a sweep of our lawn.

In the swamp itself at the first run (or the puddles that are all that remains of the first run) there are still a few plants and some duckweed, so I was thrilled to see a Duckweed Firetail there. It’s bright red and unmistakable.

All of these photos of damselflies were taken with my Canon EOS R5 with a 100-500mm telephoto lens, aperture priority. I’ve started using aperture priority and wish I’d been bolder earlier because it really does make a huge difference. As someone who is a hopeless beginner when it comes to photography, I was always afraid to try to do anything other than automatic modes, even though I did set up back button focusing on the R5. I just thought I could never manage any of the settings quickly enough to photograph living things. As it turns out, I was wrong. Sure, I’m going slowly with it, but I’m starting to get much better at least with aperture mode and setting that as needed to help improve my photos. They are still far from perfect, but they are improving.

Thankfully, even if we don’t have as many birds around as usual, there are other creatures that are fascinating to learn about and photograph. There is beauty everywhere if we just look.