White Corporal Dragonflies at Ames Nowell State Park

Just one day after posting about my longing for decent White Corporal photos, I went to Ames Nowell when I got a chance late in the afternoon. Determined to get decent photos, I was delighted when I found one patrolling a rock outcrop next to the pond. I spent about 5 minutes trying to sneek up on him and snapped the following picture, which was the best of the bunch:

White Corporal dragonfly (male)

I was absolutely determined to get pictures of this guy, and he made it easy by flying back to the same area whenever he was flushed. However, it turns out that he wasn't the only White Corporal that I would have the chance to photograph; I counted 21 mature male White Corporals in the short 1 1/2 that I was there, plus at least 4 more immature males or females.

This is one of the two males who were patrolling the boardwalk:

The White Corporal, Ladona exusta, is one of 3 corporals in its genus, the other two being Blue and Chalk-Fronted Corporals. They are in the skimmer family, Libellulidae, which are a group of dragonflies that are generally the easiest to find due to the fact that many perch on the ground, and perch often.

White Corporals are a rather range-restricted species, being found in a narrow band along the Atlantic coast from Virginia, north through New York and Massachusetts up to Nova Scotia. From my experience, early June seems to be their peak flight period; last year I didn't see any in July. According to the new jersey odes website {http://www.njodes.com/Speciesaccts/skimmers/corp-whit.asp}, they are found near slow streams and muddy ponds. Ames Nowell certainly fits that description.

Perhaps merely due to their restricted range, perhaps due to genuine declines, the White Corporal is listed as G4, which means apparently secure. In this rating, done by natureserve, G5 is essentially Least Concern, and G1 is critically endangered, so G4 is the equivalent of Near Threatened. Hopefully this merely reflects their limited range and not rarity. There are not a lot of pictures of them online, however, on the bright side, the Ames Nowell population seems to be healthy. There were a fair amount of them in the dirt/gravel paths in the power line cut, as well as where the power line cut meets the pond, which is an area festooned with lily pads and other vegetation.