1.6 fixed a lot of my play stopping bugs, as well as a lot of quests I could not do.

- one was for a giant, he was finally at the camp (after months and months of in game time)

- one was for a dragon, apparently from jarl Skald, he finally showed up (after months and months of time.)

- one was for the blades Bonestrewn Crest dragon, this one finally showed up after months and MONTHS and MONTHS
of in game time.

So BOOM, 1.6 and I could complete several quests right away.

So I figured this was OVER.

I've been merrily killing other blades dragons, jarl's dragons, doing the companions quests to kill dragons or whatever (nice to be able to leave their hall, finally) and so forth.

Then I get another one from Esbern, its to kill the one at Anthor. I'm suspicious because the arrow marker is not over Anthor but over Giant's grove (no dragon there either, go figure.) So I go to Anthor as well, no dragon. I wait days and days, no dragon.

I purposefully saved before talking to Esbern. So I went back to that save before I got the Anthor dragon, then went and did other stuff. The thing is, even after days or another day of playing the game, he gives the Anthor one again. Then I go check again, no dragon.

Should I go ahead and TAKE that quest, then continue on, even though there is no dragon and none apparently shows?
Will the game eventually "push" or whatever, so that dragon shows up (as the other 3 plus quests did IMMEDIATELY, upon
patching to 1.6 (I literally checked them all again, right before patching to 1.6 to see what it might fix.) )

I did some research, finding that at least one player (pre 1.6) had the same bug where they get anthor, the arrow is over
giant's grove and there is no dragon at either one (well, there probably could NOT be one at giant's grove anyway, but I
checked for giggles. )

This mount Anthor bug has been around since the beginning.

I had that bug on my very first character. patch 1.1

Although for me it wasn't a blades quest but a misc quest for the Jarl.

Basically it was like you say. The dragons not there but the arrow points to the wrong place.

It eventually fixed itself. I didn't visit the area for absolutely ages and one day I was just passing though the area and it spawned.

You could try travelling far away from the area so it's no longer in memory, Whiterun is as good as anywhere. then wait 31 days then travel back to see if it respawns.

Ah, I'll try that.

I just find it weird, since right after patching to 1.6 I had 3 or more ones that never respawned spawn right away. So you'd think that
in the patch which fixed the longtime problems, you'd not get a NEW one. Lols.