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UK dragonflies and damselflies, 2015 (1 Viewer)

Dropped into Badminston at the weekend for a dose of Red-veined Darter. Quite a lot of Emperors and loads and loads of Black-tailed Skimmers.

RvD were mating and ovipositing into the lake. Excellent.

John

Emperor X 2
Red-veined Darter X 3
 

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Brief visit to the pond, just off the B road as you head towards Loch Garten late this afternoon. No problem spotting quite a few Northern Damselflies, despite being mainly overcast and then starting to rain. No other scarce species seen, but conditions were not ideal.
 
JCL said:
3 RVD at Queens Hills, Costessey, Norwich, Norfolk for past two days, per @norfolkbirder. Will pop over today.
Click to expand...

Two still present on Monday. Couple of pix attached.
 

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c5 Small Red-eyed Damsels at Chichester GPs today - on the large spread of small lillies on the second lake on the right. Also present: c1000 Blue-tails, c100s Azures & Common Blues, c5 Emperors, 3o1+ Black-tailed Skimmers and 1 Common Darter,
At Ferry Pond several Ruddy Darters are present.
Also a nice Emperor hanging-up at Medmerry.

damsel smallredeyed (25) (Medium).JPGdragonfly emperor (23) (Medium).JPGdragonfly emperor (26) (Medium).jpg
 
Larry Sweetland said:
Any recent news from Kent, positive or negative, on Southern Emeralds or Norfolk Hawkers?
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I've been watching various places for news of Southern Emerald, and all I've seen is Adrian P's post here about exuviae. Nothing since then, and also no word from Winterton. But it's still relatively early for that species.
 
Some recent news now that later-season species are appearing. Firstly, a female Southern Migrant Hawker Aeshna affinis was photographed on the dunes near Ainsdale, Lancashire, on 10 July (C. Storey). Are there others about?? It’s also just surfaced that a Willow Emerald Damselfly Chalcolestes viridis was photographed at Ely, Cambridgeshire, last autumn (W. Mansfield) - the first confirmed record for the county.
 
And today's big news is that a chap from Kent tweeted a photo of a migrant hawker to the BDS for identification today. That's all UK species that can realistically be seen have been reported at least once this year.
 
Was at Loch Maree on 15th of July 2015. At Slattadale saw a Northern Emerald land on bracken on the riverbank, but couldn't get near it. In the area that Steve had indicated on his map, I saw about ten Azure Hawkers and one Common Hawker. Apart from the odd one flying, I searched the dead tree stumps and rocks around the path and riverbank just north or south of the two large fence posts on the track.
On the 13th of June 2012, I didn't see any here, but did see 3 plus about a dozen White Faced Darter at Bridge Of Grudie. These were on the pools on the second level on the loch side and south of the river. Both times saw Large Heath.
On 5th June 2011, Weather not good but did find an immature Northern Emerald and female White Faced Darter.
 
Had a go for Southern Emerald in the usual spot at Cliffe yesterday but no joy, although continuing strong winds made searching very difficult. I wonder if the lack of sightings this year is due to a lack of damselflies or the endless wind, which seems to have been going on for about 3 months now. We did find several Scarce Emeralds, a few Common Emeralds, loads of Ruddy Darters, a few Common Darters, a couple of Southern Hawkers, one Migrant Hawker and plenty of Common Blue and Blue-tailed damselflies. Highlight though was good views of a young Grass Snake in the ditches at the Southern Emerald field.
 
The Southern Migrant Hawkers are back at Wat Tyler country park. NOT in the pond that got badly trampled by photographers in 2013. Details of location and access are in Neil Phillip's blog, along with some great photos.

The blog also contains a plea to photographers, which I'll reproduce here. Neil has asked anyone posting news of the sightings to reproduce, or link, this warning:

In 2013 after sighting this dragonfly species in the park and getting some nice photos, wanting to share it with everyone, I put the word out that it was showing. Unfortunately the dragonflies moved to a less accessible pond so were less easy to see and sadly the area around the pond became trampled. In one area someone had jumped the fence and trampled a path through the reeds into the pond itself. This obviously is bad in itself with Wat Tyler being a SSSI, but it also meant a path was opened up for dogs to cause disturbance to a previously undisturbed pond.

At this time of year the park will also be very busy with families and others so the wardens will already be very busy and do not need to be dealing with people causing damage to the SSSI habitats.

As a result I was reluctant last year to report any sightings, but there were only a couple of brief sightings anyway. Today I saw 2 or 3 and they were on an accessible pond. So after careful discussion with the head warden we have decided to put the word out this time as the risk of trampling is low here and simply because I want to share this so people can see this wonderful species.

Can everyone please keep to the paths and boardwalks and avoid trampling any surrounding pond vegetation, as the park is an SSSI and is home to rare species such as great crest newts, scarce emerald damselflies and shrill carder bees. On a personal note after working there for 6 years it is quite a special place to me and it was quite upsetting to see the damage done after I had reported the sighting, to the point where I regretted doing it.

If similar trampling/damage is caused in this year it has been decided that news of any future rarity will not be reported from the park. I hope from the above you can understand why
 
Swindon Addick said:
The Southern Migrant Hawkers are back at Wat Tyler country park. NOT in the pond that got badly trampled by photographers in 2013. Details of location and access are in Neil Phillip's blog, along with some great photos.

The blog also contains a plea to photographers, which I'll reproduce here. Neil has asked anyone posting news of the sightings to reproduce, or link, this warning:

In 2013 after sighting this dragonfly species in the park and getting some nice photos, wanting to share it with everyone, I put the word out that it was showing. Unfortunately the dragonflies moved to a less accessible pond so were less easy to see and sadly the area around the pond became trampled. In one area someone had jumped the fence and trampled a path through the reeds into the pond itself. This obviously is bad in itself with Wat Tyler being a SSSI, but it also meant a path was opened up for dogs to cause disturbance to a previously undisturbed pond.

At this time of year the park will also be very busy with families and others so the wardens will already be very busy and do not need to be dealing with people causing damage to the SSSI habitats.

As a result I was reluctant last year to report any sightings, but there were only a couple of brief sightings anyway. Today I saw 2 or 3 and they were on an accessible pond. So after careful discussion with the head warden we have decided to put the word out this time as the risk of trampling is low here and simply because I want to share this so people can see this wonderful species.

Can everyone please keep to the paths and boardwalks and avoid trampling any surrounding pond vegetation, as the park is an SSSI and is home to rare species such as great crest newts, scarce emerald damselflies and shrill carder bees. On a personal note after working there for 6 years it is quite a special place to me and it was quite upsetting to see the damage done after I had reported the sighting, to the point where I regretted doing it.

If similar trampling/damage is caused in this year it has been decided that news of any future rarity will not be reported from the park. I hope from the above you can understand why
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing and adding the messages about trampling. Everyone has so far seems to have taken it on board. :)

I feel for the record though I should point out it was not just photographers trampling, witnessed first hand people with just a pair of binoculars trampling vegetation as they tried to get closer.
 
Does anybody have any information about the best place to look for dragonflies/damselflies at Marsh Farm Country Park in Essex? I noticed on the BDS Sightings page a report of good numbers of both Red-eyed and Small Red-eyed Damselflies, plus Willow-emerald, but unsure where is best to look on the site and struggling to find information online.
 
Jonny721 said:
Does anybody have any information about the best place to look for dragonflies/damselflies at Marsh Farm Country Park in Essex? I noticed on the BDS Sightings page a report of good numbers of both Red-eyed and Small Red-eyed Damselflies, plus Willow-emerald, but unsure where is best to look on the site and struggling to find information online.
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Don't know much about that site, though there are other places where those species occur. The nearest one that I know that has all three is near Great Wakering in the SE of the county if that's any good to you.

There's also a good site for Scarce Emerald over that way if you're over that way and interested.

In other news, no sign of Essex's second Southern Emerald this morning at Gunners Park, Shoeburyness. It had been frequenting an area of gorse covered in spiders webs, so hoping it hasn't ended up in the belly of a Wasp Spider..:eek!:

Over at Wat Tyler 2 or 3 male Southern Migrant Hawkers were still over the pond just NW of the car park at the south end, and showing very well.
 
When were the reports of Southern Migrant Hawker from Wat Tyler, today 30th July?. Were these the ponds with the concrete ramp on it.

Marc
 
Heathy said:
When were the reports of Southern Migrant Hawker from Wat Tyler, today 30th July?. Were these the ponds with the concrete ramp on it.

Marc
Click to expand...

Yes, at midday today. The pond to the west (right) of the road, behind the marina offices, just before you get to the car park at the south end. The concrete ramp is at the SW side of that pond.

They seem to come and go though, today was third time lucky for me this year.
 
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