Eastern Forktail
Ischnura verticalis · Dragonflies & damselflies
Eastern Forktail
Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, 3 August 2025
A male Eastern Forktail at the edge of the tidal marsh at Jamaica Bay, green-and-black with the small pale blue tip at the end of the abdomen that gives the species away. It is one of the commonest damselflies in the Northeast, at home in still water from a garden pond to a salt marsh like this one.
The females are stranger: they start out orange and turn a dull, powdery blue-grey as they age, and were long thought to be a different species.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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