28 May 18 - Bank Holiday Clubbing

Around the Bank Holiday weekend, my thoughts turned to looking at the weather for suitable sunny conditions to have another attempt to see Club-tailed Dragonflies. I had looked in June 2014 at the Goring-on-Thames site, but had been unsuccessful. I've tried to find another date in subsequent years to head back, but I've not been able to find good looking conditions on a free weekend. So I was interested when I saw one of the Dorset Birders had successfully seen Club-tailed Dragonflies at a site in Sussex on the Bank Holiday Sunday. A quick chat on social media & I had some directions. The weather looked good on the Bank Holiday Monday, so I left early hoping the traffic would be light: fortunately, it was. I arrived just before 11 & the weather forecast was spot on: sunny & still conditions. First problem was having to get past a number of young, inquisitive cattle on the riverbank. About ten minutes later, I saw my first Club-tailed Dragonfly, but it quickly disappeared out of view. Five minutes later, the next was happy to sit around for photos.

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. Club-tailed Dragonflies are initially tricky to see once the adults hatch as the teneral phase quickly head off to nearby treetops to mature

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. After a couple of weeks in the treetops, the mature adults return to the riverbank to mate

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. They range from Sussex to the Thames in Oxfordshire & across to the Severn on clean, slow-moving rivers

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. This one landed on the grass by the riverbank for a few minutes, before returning to patrolling the river

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. A couple of the males were patrolling the river over a 50 metre stretch

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. I didn't see any females so perhaps they were still to return to the river

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. The males were sitting around close to the river to look for the females as they returned from the treetops

There were also large numbers of Banded Demoiselles & smaller numbers of Large Red Damselflies along the river bank.

Banded Demoiselle: Male. They were very common along the riverbank, but I only took a few photos of them as I've taken a lot of photos in previous years

Banded Demoiselle: Male. They are even more stunning when seen close up

Banded Demoiselle: Female

Banded Demoiselle: Female

Banded Demoiselle: Males. I really like this photo

Large Red Damselfly

I also saw a Shieldbug which I wasn't sure which one it was at the time, but it looked familiar. But the beauty of having a decent camera meant I could photograph it & work it out later, when I had the book handy.

Coreus marginatus: This widespread Shieldbug occurs as an adult from August to July & prefers dense vegetation along hedgerows, wasteland & damper areas. I was right, I had seen it before

Coreus marginatus: I saw several without any real searching

I also saw this presumed pair of Beetles, which I've not managed to identifying yet.

Beetle sp.: Any thoughts about the identification?

28 Nov 14 - Insect Photospot4 - Dorset Damselflies

This is the second Dragonfly Photospot, covering the Damselflies & Demoiselles that are found in Dorset. The main aim is to give the readers an appreciation of the variety of species that can be seen in Dorset, rather than focusing on the identification. There are plenty more photos of these species as well as useful identification features in earlier Posts: just click on the Label links on the right hand side of the Blog.

Banded Demoiselle: Male. This is a common species on a number of the clean Dorset rivers. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Banded Demoiselle: Female. White Mill, Sturminster Marshall (28 June 14)

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male. This is more of a heathland pond species. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Emerald Damselfly: Male. Currently, this is the only Emerald Damselfly found in Dorset, but there are other species that have recently colonised Kent & East Anglia and hopefully in time, they will reach Dorset. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Emerald Damselfly: Female. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

White-legged Damselfly: Male. Canford School Water Meadows (29 June 14)

White-legged Damselfly: Female. Canford School Water Meadows (29 June 14)

Red-eyed Damselfly: This species seems to really like resting on water lilies well away from the water's edge. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Red-eyed Damselfly: Mating Pair. Throop Mill (23 June 14)

Small Red-eyed Damselfly: This species is less widespread than Red-eyed Damselfly in Dorset with the Weymouth area being one of the more reliable sites to see it. It is a species I have yet to photograph

Large Red Damselfly: East Holme Water Meadows (6 June 14)

Large Red Damselfly: Mating Pair. Brownsea (21 June 14)

Small Red Damselfly: This species is smaller & daintier than Large Red Damselfly and is a heathland specialist. Arne (11 July 14)

Blue-tailed Damselfly: This is the common Blue-tailed Damselfly species in Dorset. Bestwall (19 June 14)

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly: This is a rarer of the two Blue-tailed Damselfly species in Dorset with a limited number of sites. It likes good boggy conditions or habitats with open edges to water and doesn't seem to be much of a flier compared to its commoner relative (4 Aug 14)

Common Blue Damselfly: Male. White Mill, Sturminster Marshall (28 June 14)

Azure Damselfly: Arne (8 June 14)

Southern Damselfly: This is the scarce species of the three Blue Damselflies. The main features to separate the 3 Dorset Blue Damselflies can be found here (9 July 12)

28 June 14 - The Moral Of Not Carrying The Book

After some help from my mate Kevin, I was off to try another site on Dorset's River Stour. This is further upstream on the site tried on the 23rd for White-legged Damselfly & near to the large village of Sturminster Marshall. After driving through the large village of Sturminster Marshall, the road crossed the Stour next to the White Mill. There is a small National Trust car park here. Walking upstream & away from the Mill, for about 50 metres brought me to a path leading to the river bank. Very quickly, the path opens up into the first of several fields alongside the river bank. This is the site for the White-legged Damselflies. There are a lot of Stinging Nettles alongside the river as well as areas of other plants & bushes, but the vegetation in the first field had been severely strimmed. There were excellent numbers of Banded Demoiselles along the full length of the main river bank with about 10 or so Scarce Chasers in the first field & an Emperor Dragonfly hawking over the river. The path then carried in into a couple of short grass Cow fields. The Stinging Nettles along the riverbed edge of the fields were good for Banded Demoiselles, but little else.

Looking downriver along the main river bank

Looking upriver along the main river bank

Little Egret: Closer to the Mill. Once a national rarity, now a common sight in Dorset

Mallard: Male entering its dull eclipse plumage which they adopt during their moult phase (when the replace their feathers)

By the entrance into the first Cow field, there is an alternative path into long, thin sided field of rough grass with a sloping bank alongside an overgrown ditch. There were about 6 Common Blue Damselflies & one White-legged Damselfly in the long grass in this field. Despite checking the book before I left the house, I ended up failing to appreciate the potential confusion of the immature female Common Blue Damselfly (which look different from the mature blue females). As a result, I ended photographing a couple of Damselflies, thinking they were White-legged Damselfies, which I later reidentified as Common Blue Damselflies (when I checked the photos against the book). I did manage to see & photograph a real White-legged Damselfly, but the photos aren't as good as they would have been, had I realised my error at the time: as I would have spent longer photographing it. Still I always think you learn, & more importantly remember, more by making these mistakes. It also shows the importance of having a camera to get some photos of these insects to be able to check all the features. 

The side field: This looked more interesting habitat & I did finally see one White-legged Damselfly in the long grass, with a couple of immature female Common Blue Damselflies

Common Blue Damselfly: Male. Nice & easy to identify as lots of blue on the abdomen and the head & shoulders marking on the second segment (which separates it from the other small blue Damselflies)

Common Blue Damselfly: Immature female Common Blue Damselfly. Mature adult females would still be as bright blue as the males. They have this missile like marking on their abdomen and crucially some white on the legs

Common Blue Damselfly: Another photos of the immature female Common Blue Damselfly. Again note the white on the legs

White-legged Damselfly: The legs are more white, the tops of the eyes are blue & the pterostigma markings are light brown (black on Common Blue Damselfly)

The Scarce Chasers & the Banded Demoiselles were dominating the main river bank. The Scarce Chasers were very active and rarely settled. When they did settle, they would fly at the slightest movement even several metres from them. When they met another male, both would go an impressively fast vertical climb for about 20 metres, in an attempt to other climb each other.

Scarce Chaser: Male. Due to the angle of this photo it's not possible to see the black base to the hind wing. However, the lack of yellow-orange edges to the sides of the abdomen & the dark pterostigma still confirms it is a Scarce Chaser

Scarce Chaser: Male. This tatty male shows how limited the black on the hind wing is the Scarce Chasers here 

Scarce Chaser: Male. Finally a head on view

Banded Demoiselle: Male

Banded Demoiselle: Female. We think they look great, the Bug this female is eating wouldn't have agreed they are anything other than dangerous predators

Banded Demoiselle: Female. I couldn't resist a final photo

The sunny conditions were also good for Butterflies. There were reasonable numbers of Small Tortoiseshells, a few Red Admirals & Meadow Browns & a Green-veined White.

Green-veined White

Red Admiral

Red Admiral: They become a lot more cryptic when they close their wings up

Small Tortoiseshell: Although not as common as they were when I was a kid, this species seems to be around in better numbers than recent years