A fat package arrived from The Natural Heritage Program.  A letter from the project coordinator.  A certificate of appreciation for my contributions.  And a big fat book containing the results of the New York Dragonfly and Damselfly Survey (NYDDS) – a project that began in 2005 and continued through the summer and early fall of 2009.

I’m just loving flipping through the pages one by one…  The maps… The charts…  The photographs (some of them mine 🙂 )… The information…

I’m very proud of these accomplishments:

1. Chautauqua County tied for 6th in the number surveys submitted.  A lot of those surveys (most) came from Jeremy Martin.  And a lot came from folks at Audubon:  staff, a board member, college interns, and day camp and other program participants.
2. Of the 72 species we racked up for Chautauqua County, fully half were new county records – species that had never been verified for our county previous to 2005.
3. Six of the species we verified were considered to be “species of greatest conservation need.” 
4. We were the only county to verify 100% of the expected species for our county.

And I have a deep feeling of satisfaction over all the people that got hooked on nature via dragonflies over the years:

Justin and Phyllis

Kathleen

Richard

“Z”

Kimberly

John

Jeremy

Cassie

Jacob

Waylon

… and I could go on and on …

Thanks to all who helped out with this survey!  I hope you are as proud of the results as I am.