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)

3 Aug 14 - Beautiful, Black, Blue & Emerald

With no joy in the first 2 bogs tried, I carried on into Rempstone Forest to check out the final local historical site for Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly. En route, there were a few commoner Dragonflies, Butterflies & a Wasp Spider. For those of you that don't like Spiders, well don't go to the bottom of the post. But best to continue as this is one of the best looking UK Spiders. But first there was a great Helice Clouded Yellow. Clouded Yellows are a great migrant Butterfly that appear in varying numbers in Dorset. A smaller variable percentage come in the pale Helice form. This only affects females (like the Valesina Silver-washed Fritillaries), but I've yet to understand why only females have this aberration.

Clouded Yellow: Helice female. A percentage of the females have a pale form know as a Helice, where the butterfly is much paler than the normal dark yellow colouration. They are even whiter on the upperwing

Clouded Yellow: This is the typical form taken at Fontmell Down as part of the same recent invasion (30 July 14)

 

Common Blue

Common Blue

There were also a few Black Darters, Common Darters, Beautiful Demoiselles & a good selection of Emerald Damselflies. But unfortunately, the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly site was as dry as a bone. So no chance of any there.

Black Darter: Male

Common Darter: Female

Common Darter: Female closeup of the face. The black line above the frons (nose) does not turn down by the side of the eyes & this is diagnostic of Common Darters: it turns down in all the other species

Common Darter: Female. the 2 yellow bands on the side of the thorax also confirms it is a Common Darter

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male

Emerald Damselfly: Male. The pale blue covering the first 2 segments in Emerald Damselfly & the pterostigma are long & relatively thin separate this from a Scarce Emerald Damselfly (which has the pale blue over the first & half of segment 2. Scarce Emerald also has a broader, shorter pterostigma

Emerald Damselfly: Female.

Emerald Damselfly: Female. Emerald Damselfly has a narrow white stripe on the side of the thorax and an isolated green spot just above the middle leg. Scarce Emerald does not have the green spot and the white stripe on the side of the thorax

Emerald Damselfly: Immature female

Emerald Damselfly: Immature female. Just about possible to see the green spot & the orange side stripe on the thorax

Finally, the Wasp Spider. I remember seeing my first Wasp Spiders at Radipole in the early 80s. In those days, they were apparently reasonable well established on the Kent to Dorset coastline, having only been found for the first time in the UK in 1922 in Rye, Sussex. I don't know how they got there in the first place from the continent. They have expanded their range considerably since & are now well established from Cornwall to Suffolk, with scattered localities elsewhere as far as Birmingham.

Wasp Spider: Female. This is a female, the males are much smaller than this large Spider

23 June 14 - Confusing Blue-tailed Cousins

One of the things I've been trying to do this Summer is see a few of the Dragonflies & Damselflies that I've not seen before. Also, I'm trying & get some decent photos of each of the UK species. There is only one Dorset species I've not seen before & that is Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly. A good birding mate of mine, Kevin Lane, got in touch to say he had seen them over the weekend in the New Forest. So it seemed a good idea to take advantage of the ongoing decent weather & head over there. It would give me a better idea of the habitat, before trying to find this uncommon species in Dorset. There are a couple of historical sites around the Poole Harbour & Purbeck areas close to me, which I would like to check out in the coming weeks.

The Latchmore Brook: These slow flowing streams are typical of the New Forest

The New Forest is just over the border in Hampshire. It will be a well known area to UK residents, but for the overseas readers of this blog, I'll give you a quick overview. The name is very misleading as it is some of the oldest forested and unfenced lowland in the Southern England. It was created as a protected area for hunting of Deer in 1079 by King William 1, also known as William the Conqueror, soon after William's invasion of the UK.  It covered over 200 square miles in the South West corner of Hampshire, to the West of Southampton. This constant protection has resulted in a rich tapestry of heathland, woodland & more open grassland. The protection has continued for the area to this day, albeit the Deer are no longer hunted by the Royal Family. One of the good things is development within the New Forest has been limited, so that there are still large areas of open countryside. The local inhabitants have Commoners rights to graze Horses, Ponies & Cows throughout the New Forest & this has also helped to maintain this important habitat. Most of the New Forest is owned by the nation & the area was designated as a National Park in April 2006. It is a major tourist area & getting out on a Monday to avoid the crowds was a good idea. Having said that, the area I was visiting is on the North Western boundary of the New Forest & is probably one of the quieter parts.

Latchmore Brook & New Forest Horses

A typical New Forest view: The gentle slopes, grassy areas, low areas of Heather & patches of forest are all very typical

The Dragonfly areas are along the Latchmore Brook. As I started to walk from the car park I quickly ran into a Green Woodpecker & a party of Long-tailed Tits. There were a pair of Stonechats on the heath along with a few Meadow Pipits. But generally the birdlife was pretty quiet.

Green Woodpecker: The females have black moustachials whereas the males have obvious red moustachials

Long-tailed Tit: Juvenile

The first Dragonflies seen were these Beautiful Demoiselles. They were along the length of the small river. The males were fairly approachable, but the females provided to be too skittish in the sunshine.

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male have a completely dark metallic blue underwing, whereas the similar Banded Demoiselles have a distinct band with a clear base & tip to the wing

Beautiful Demoiselle: Male. I couldn't resist another photo

After about half a mile of walking, but a lot of looking, I reached Kevin's site where he had seen the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies. I walked around the area, but there was no obvious sign of any Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies, amongst the other more obvious species: Golden-ringed Dragonfly, many Keeled Skimmers, my first Common Darter of the year, Large Red & Azure Damselflies.

Keeled Skimmer: Male. Note, the wings face forward, the thin blue abdomen with no yellow edges and the black restricted to the extreme end of the abdomen 

Keeled Skimmer: Male. Also note the lack of dark markings at the base of the wing, which indicates this is a Skimmer & not one of the Chasers. The oblong marking (pterostigma) at end wing is yellow-brown in Keeled Skimmers, compared to dark brown or black in Black-tailed Skimmers

Common Darter: Immature Female. Note, the black legs with a yellow line down the outer edge (Ruddy Darters would have all black legs)

Common Darter: Immature female

Common Darter: Immature female Common Darters have a yellow thorax (while a female Ruddy Darter has a black T on the top of the yellow thorax)

Common Darter: Immature Female. Note, the black marking in the face is a line which does not continue down the sides of the eye (which it does in the other Darter species)

Large Red Damselfly: Female. The black bands extending up the abdomen indicates this is a female, males have more red in the abdomen with the black limited to the segments closest to the end of the abdomen

Having walked up & mainly down, I sat down by the end of the stream. Immediately, I did I saw a Damselfly fly a short distance & settle back down again. I could see it was a Blue-tailed Damselfly type & a quick check with the bins confirmed it was a Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly. Care is needed to check the Damselflies as Kevin saw both species in this area.

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly: Male. The blue is on segment 9 and the end of segment 8 (whereas it's on Segment 8 on Blue-tailed Damselfly)

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly: Male. Overall they are thinner & weaker bodied than Blue-tailed Damselfly 

Blue-tailed Damselfly: For comparison, here is a Blue-tailed Damselfly with the blue on segment 8 and segments 9 & 10 being black (Swineham, 19 June 14)

The Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly habitat: They were perching on the short stalks near to the stream

There were good numbers of Silver-studded Blues on the heath, as well as, the Large Skippers & Small Skippers: all the first I've seen this year.

Silver-studded Blue: Females are brown on the upperside. The superficially resemble the Brown Argus but only have orange spots on the hind wing (Brown Argus have obvious spots on all wings)

Silver-studded Blue

I don't really know much about plants, apart from Orchids, but there were a couple of interesting ones seen today.

Round-leaved Sundew: One of my favourite plants, being one of the few carnivorous plants in the UK

Round-leaved Sundew: They are very common in the boggy parts of the New Forest

Bog Asphodel: Again a common bog species

Bog Asphodel: A larger clump