Jan 5 - 2022 Species Info

Some of these must be random chance, an intermittently appearing species that benefitted from a higher level of observation, but others are probably indicative of species that are colonizing new areas. I’d seen a single Comet Darner in Woodbury in Coshocton County in 2021, but it was a very brief sighting and I didn’t get a photo. In 2022, I found a pair of them flying extended patterns over a different Woodbury pond—an area I’d visited in previous years, but not as frequently as my own property. I also checked in 2 observations on my own property, an area that has benefitted from relatively systematic observation since 2018. I’m much more confident that those 2 sightings are representative of something new, but it’s at least as likely the result of microhabitat change due to beaver activity as it is due to range expansion. I’d never observed Black Saddlebags in our Coshocton property until 2021, and in 2022, they were both breeding in and emerging from the w year old beaver pond.

How about Slaty Skimmer as a species that has been moving across Ohio? It would be interesting to animate the last 4 years of sightings for multiple species.