Eastern least Clubtail

On Monday I went walking in Johnston Mill Nature Preserve along New Hope Creek. Right where the mill used to be I met a man and his son, later I ran into them and they told me they had seen 2 dragonflies emerging on rocks in the creek. So I went back to look for the newly emerged dragonflies, all that remained were the exuvias. Now my shoes were wet so I decided to look for my own emerging. It did not take long to find some emerging dragonflies. Turns out they were Eastern Least Clubtails - Stylogomphus albistylus,  exactly what I'd hoped to find.

This female Eastern Least Clubtail was just barely out of the water on that tiny rock. If the water had been rising, this would have been fish food for sure. Bad news is she was still in the exuvia when I found her, but my big camera died from all the sweating, it was 90 plus degrees out there.

Same female expanding her body.

Different female at least she picked a bigger rock. I took 2 photos with my little camera from about an inch away and she flew into the trees. The big exuvia is hers, the tiny one in a damselfly exuvia.

Here is an mature Eastern Least Clubtail, from the same spot on New Hope Creek in 2004 a few weeks later in the season. As you can see teneral (immature) dragonflies can be difficult to tell what they are when they first emerge.