We're off to a roaring start, and will now be hitting our peak diversity in the next two weeks.

May now has 7,959 observations, for 102 species - this is well ahead of 2023, which was a new high at the time (4,255 obs, 86 sp).

On the year we're now over 12,000 observations. Every county has 2024 observations, over 500 contributors.

So far we have 38 species with new early flight dates. We also have 49 new county records. 15 of the new county records are in target counties, so yay.

We started the year with 25 counties below 1,000 total observations. That count is now 17, and 3 counties are now very near the mark. So making progress. Thanks to all contributing.

Nearly Summer on the calendar, certainly summer looking at the temperatures.

And we're rolling with Odonata observations. Now closing in on 14,000 for the 2024 season. Over 600 research grade contributors. This highlights a good effort by our naturalist community.

We are at 111 species - not bad. Surprising numbers on some of the Clubtails. Splendid, Handssome, Cobra, Dusky, Plains, and Rusty Snaketails are all having really good seasons.

Early fliers that we have missed so far are Marsh Bluet, Chalk-fronted Corporal, Boreal Bluet, Northern Spreadwing, Frosted Whiteface, American Emerald, and Riffle Snaketail - no surprises here as these are never reported in big numbers, and several seem to be on the decline. We had a few Four-spotted Skimmer that survived the Ohio summer (2023) and winter. We were hoping for more, but nice to have a few.

37 species have new county records in 40 counties, for a running total of 61 new county records. This is a good number, behind the glory years of 2018-2019, but the low-hanging fruit is mostly gone! Leaders are Spatterdock Darner and Variegated Meadowhawk, both with 4 new counties. Lawrence, Medina, Mercer, and Seneca all have 3 new species.

The early season (warm weather) has produced 40+ new early flight dates. I'll have to start looking at late flight dates as we transition to departures.

It's also time to start the "County Complete" reporting. I was surprised to see that Eastern Forktail only needs 2024 observations in Adams, Brown, Trumbull, and Washington to have records in all 88 Ohio Counties. Fragile Forktail and Common Whitetail are next in line. Fragile Forktail is the current leader in number of observations, followed closely by Eastern Forktail, then a gap to Common Whitetail. Blue Dasher and Eastern Pondhawk are gaining as we get into the heart of their flight.

May 31, 2024 is now our top day of observations - ever! 730 research grade observations have been entered to the project for that day, representing 63 species from 60 observers. This edges out July 14, 2023 (727, 56, 62). Pretty amazing, and maybe more to come.

We now have June observations in all counties except Belmont, Huron, Monroe, Noble, and Washington. These are also some of the low counties for the year. Maybe we can fix some of that with the upcoming DSA meeting in Marietta - I hope to see you there!