On 21 Jul 24, news broke of a Scarlet Darter at Silverlake in Dorset, with the suspicion that there was a second male present. This is a relatively new reserve of flooded sand pits that are still maturing. When people looked the next day, there were two confirmed males at the site and that rose to three males a few days later. This is quite incredible given the one I photographed at Longham on 9 Jul 17 was only the eighth UK record. Since then another had been seen at Longham in Jun 19 & one was seen at Minsmere in Jul 22. All of these records have been short stay individuals & I was lucky to see the final sighting of the first Longham individual. To get several male Scarlet Darters hanging around at the same location, is good evidence that they had already bred at the lake.
Having seen one before, I left it for a few days before I visited Silverlake, in the hope that there would be females found by the time I tried. I arrived just before midday & saw Pete Moore who had arrived about thirty minutes before I did. Pete confirmed that there was one male hanging around about a metre from the water's edge and returning to an area with minimal vegetation. He had only just told me where to look, when he said, there's one. It posed for some initial photos, but was gone after a couple of minutes.
This male reappeared on an number of occasions over the next hour and posed for a couple of minutes at a time. The main identification features for male Scarlet Darter are: the flat, broad bright scarlet abdomen, pale pterostigma, orange colouration at base of hind wing, red wing veins and blue on the bottom of the eyes. Ruddy Darters are a potential confusion species, but their darker red colouration, black line on the top of the abdomen at the end and their pinched waist will quickly confirm their identification.
After an hour or so, a shout went up at the far side of the lake to say there was a pair of Scarlet Darters over there. A few of the peeps ran found to the far side of the lake in the hope of connecting, but they had disappeared before they got there. I wandered around at a more leisurely speed. I did see another male over there which showed every now & then. After about fifteen minutes, there was another shout & subsequent stampede for a pair of Scarlet Darters close where I saw the first individual. Some of the peeps that ran back around the lake, managed to get to see them. I decided to stay where I was. I saw the second male briefly tangled with a third male, before they each returned to area they were patrolling, but that was all I saw of the third male.
Eventually, I returned to the original location where I saw the first male again, but I failed to see any of the females. In total, there were four males present and at least one female.
This lake was larger than the Longham lake. It was oval shaped with a diameter of about one hundred and seventy metres. Like the smaller Longham lake it was a shallow lake with relatively light vegetation along some parts of the lake shore. There were no obvious signs of Fish in these lakes.
It had been a very hot & sunny day. I saw the last sighting about 14:15 and stayed for another thirty minutes without any further sightings. I suspect after several hours of patrolling in the heat, they headed off to the surrounding trees for a rest. It had been an excellent few hours at this superb site and there was a good selection of other species present. I will cover them in the next Blog Post.