UK dragonflies and damselflies, 2015 (1 Viewer)

Gavin Mac said:

That's very helpful - thanks. Is Northern Emerald meant to be in the Loch Garten area too ? G

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Uath lochans is better for Northern Emerald - seen easily in 2009

Regards

James

James Hunter said:

Uath lochans is better for Northern Emerald - seen easily in 2009

Regards

James

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I agree with James about Uath lochans. We even saw one along the approach road just before you turn into the car park. Spent hours looking in the Loch Garten area for NE without luck.
We also saw Azure Hawker at Loch Arkaig, in fact several, but that was in 2005 & 2006 before they cut down the forested area. Not sure on current status but nice to see Phil had one in 2012.
Loch Maree is really easy to get to from Inverness.

Visited the Loch Garten sites on 14 June. first warm day in ten days around northern Scotland. A single White faced Darter emerging from the regular site just before the right hand turning just passed RSPB centre. At the second roadside pond with boardwalk before the RSPB center Northern Damselflies in good numbers. For interest an early morning Pine Martin seen in the rear view mirror on the road down to Nethy Bridge, glad it ran behind me!

Red-veined Darters

There must be an invasion. I found a posting on FB of some in the IOW on 11th and today there were 14 at Badminston GP (Hants), including an ovipositing pair. Also some Scarce Blue-tailed and Small Red Damselflies there.

RVDs as per Paul's post above; 15+ with 1-2 pairs in cop.

cheers, alan

I’ve had a couple of recent holidays in Gairloch, where I’ve spent a considerable amount of time searching for Northern Emerald, White-faced Darter and Azure Hawker in the surrounding areas. It’s probably fair to say that none of the three species are easy to find at any of the favourite sites mentioned so far:
Slattadale Forest (spelt with an ‘a’ - being pedantic!), Glen Affric, Loch Garten, Bridge of Grudie or Beinn Eighe visitor centre) though it’s worth mentioning that on each occasion I’ve probably been at either end of the peak season (early June or late July/early August). You should stand a much better chance of connecting in early July!

As has been said already, the boardwalk/bog pool on the approach road to Loch Garten RSPB is probably the best bet for Northern Damselfly, but I think if time is limited I’d focus my efforts elsewhere for the others. You could of course be lucky anywhere though!

I’ve managed to see (and photograph well) precisely one each of the other 3 species at Slattadale Forest (map attached) over two visits in late July 2011 (but I’ve failed to see any of the targets on several other visits!). I’ve tried all of the other sites on several occasions, without success (with the exception of Uath Lochans, which definitely sounds worth a try for N Emerald) so for that reason Slattadale would be my favoured site to concentrate my efforts. If you’ve gone all that way to Scotland then another hour and a bit is surely worth the effort to give yourself the best chance! I've read of other trip reports to this site where visitors have seen 10+ AH sitting around on the logs/stumps in peak season.

During my 2011 visit, I bumped into the local dragonfly recorder, who gave me details of perhaps the best site in Scotland for WFD (Monadh Mor, not far west of Inverness as you drive towards Loch Maree) Site/location details in this leaflet:

http://www.british-dragonflies.org.uk/sites/british-dragonflies.org.uk/files/images/Scottish%20leaflet%20-low%20resolution%20website%20version.pdf

He said it’s easily possible to get 20-30+ WFD there in peak season. From my research ‘Simon’s Pond’ is the main water body and best spot to look (apparantly named after a boy who went missing there, so be careful!)

On the day I spoke to the recorder, he’d seen a couple of male Azure Hawkers on the roadside pools about 100-200m before Bridge of Grudie (left hand side as you drive westwards). That’s where adults return to breed/oviposit.

Map of Slattadale attached, as well as a heavily cropped image of a possible Azure Hawker from 8th Aug 2014 (high up in the same Ash tree I saw a male in 2011)

There is a new reserve on the Lleyn Peninsula (North Wales)called the fens. It is slowly coming into a great marsh for Dragonflies and other fresh water delights.
A couple of days ago I found in the shallow water many Damselflies, Border Chaser's. I'm at the learning stage but a friend of mine and myself get to see lots, naming the species is getting better.
Two photos I have are Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly and 4 spotted Chaser ( I think).

Agree with your IDs Shirley. Sounds a good site.

Small Red-eyed Damselfly (2 males) on Southampton Common Boating Lake this morning but still no sign of any Red-veined Darters this year.

Scotland

Just to add to the debate I've recently returned from 10 days up in Scotland and with some decent spells of weather did a fair bit of dragonflying whilst there.

Main highlight was a day spent at Bridge of Grudie on 11th June which produced five sightings of at least 3 Azure Hawkers, plus several sightings of Northern Emeralds including both male and females.

Other species seen included several White-faced Darters (immatures of both sexes), Golden-ringed, Four-spotted Chasers and Large Red Damselflies.

All were seen within the sheltered dell area (just down from the parking area) and the first appeared at c9.30 once the sun had come out, and with this area so easy to work, especially if you are your own I would definitely recommend visiting here.

Just a note a caution though, I revisited on the 14th which was a sunny but cooler day (only 12 degs) and could only find Northern Emeralds in the 3 or 4 hours that I was there, and failed, along with other dragonflyers that I met, to find any Azure Hawkers at all during a week spent visiting all the prime sites in mid-July last year, so AH is far from guaranteed.

Simon

Edit: Also non-dragonfly sightings included an adult and imm Golden Eagles from the Kinlochewe viewpoint and Pine Marten on the roadside at dusk between the Beinn Eighe visitor centre and Bridge of Grudie.

Scotland Part 2

The other highlights during my trip were both male and female Brilliant Emeralds emerging at Loch Bran on June 12th, and on various visits during my stay several White-faced Darters emerging from the pool at Loch Garten, and Northern Damselflies both at Loch Garten and Logierait Mires pool.

Simon

Mouthwatering Scotland report tractorboy, nice one. Good to know it can be done! What were Common Hawker numbers like at the Azure sites?

Thanks Larry.

Fortunately there were no Common Hawkers on the wing at that point, they're probably due to emerge any day now. I purposely went early for that reason as I found it a bit of a nightmare last year with so many Common Hawkers around, eg a feeding flock of 30+ in the evening at Slattadale with them resting on boulders, birch trunks etc all adding to the task of picking out an Azure that much harder, and thats without the blue form Commons which made it even worse!

Personally I found it very difficult to accurately assess colours and size of a flying Hawker to id it with 100% certainty but maybe if there really had been Azures around then they would have been obvious (?), but I was glad there was no doubt this time around with no Commons on the wing and of course finding them perched and very approachable was a bonus!

Simon

I anticipate that I'd have ID concerns too, if I finally get round to doing this trip. Though the BDS website seems to suggest it's a doddle, with this useful quote: "Similar in appearence to other Hawkers but, as its range only overlaps that of the Common Hawker, it is unlikely to cause confusion."!

I did the trip for the Scottish species last year (report is buried in last year's thread somewhere) and definitely intend to go back, so I'm picking up some very useful tips here. Not least going slightly earlier to avoid all that effort checking common hawkers! Having said which, I never normally see them perched, so several perched and one emerging were actually quite a highlight.

Early July last year I struggled to find Azures at some of the well-known spots. Some sites were a lot less boggy than I'd been led to expect, after a dry early summer, which may have been part of it. My best site for them was Beinn Eighe visitor centre, along the path that leads back towards Kinlochewe from the network of hill paths (it's very well marked on the maps outside the visitor centre).

As others have said, Loch Garten is the place for Northern Damselfly, and the small pool further down the road was reliable for White-faced Darter once I found it.

Still at least one Norfolk Hawker at Amwell Nature Reserve, Hertfordshire today. Flying around the small lake south of Tumbling Bay Lake, accessed from the transverse track that runs across the reserve, from the canal to Holly Cross Lake.

The past few days have produced c25 Norfolk Hawker at Westbere Lakes, Kent and at a nearby private site, c5 Red veined Darter. Plenty of shots of both species added to my blog: www.marcheath.blogspot.com.

Marc

Yesterday I had one last effort at seeing a clubtail for the year. No joy again. I've heard from several different people now that they've had a bad year in several of the well-known places - I'd been hoping my lack of success was just down to my very poor clubtail-finding skills.

On the upside, there were ovipositing banded demoiselles and white-legged damselflies at Goring, plus red-eyed damsels and a lone emperor at other sites later in the day.

Almost all species have been reported at least once now. Rather than plough through what's been seen, here's a list of what I don't think has been reported on the BDS sightings page, their Twitter account or this forum:

Willow Emerald
Southern Emerald
Migrant Hawker
Southern Migrant Hawker
Northern Emerald

Plus technically Dainty Damsel, but it's a few years now since they were seen at any site accessible to the public. Also Black Darter seems only to have been reported once, a couple of weeks ago, so we're still waiting for that to emerge properly. And Common Hawker I've so far only seen reported from Scotland.

Swindon Addick said:

Also Black Darter seems only to have been reported once, a couple of weeks ago, so we're still waiting for that to emerge properly.

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I saw 17 Black Darters at Town Common (Christchurch) on Thursday 25th including fully black males. I prefer not to clog up the BDS site with reports of reasonably common (even if localised) species once the first sightings been reported.

There were 21 (20m,f) Red-veined Darters at Badminston GP (Hants) on 27th - with a territorial male on each fishing platform at the southern end. There must be more females (Alan saw 2) but searching for them in grass in strong winds is a mug's game.

John & Gill Brook have found exuviae of Southern Emerald Damselfly at Cliffe (final confirmation of breeding there, though there's obviously been a colony for a few years now), so this species should be on the wing.
I visited a Willow Emerald site in Suffolk today, and only found old oviposition scars and no fresh adults. It can't be too long now, though.

Adrian