17 Jul 24 - A Brownsea Ruddy Darter

This Male Ruddy Darter posed very well by the DWT Brownsea bomb pond. The small size, bright blood-red abdomen with its pinched waist and black line on the final segments, red-brown thorax without any shoulder stripes, red pterostigma, small yellow-orange coloured base to the wings and black legs makes this an easy species to identify.

Ruddy Darter: Male

27 Nov 14 - Insect Photospot3 - Dorset Dragonflies

Following on from the Butterfly Photospots, then now is a good time to look back on my other big Insect passion this Summer: the Dragonflies. I've really enjoyed looking at the Dragonflies & Damselflies. I have been looking at Dragonflies for the last few years now, after initially dabbling with the first Dragonflies back in my university days for a few years. However, it is only really this year that I think I've really got a good grasp on their identification features & I have been generally able to recall the features from memory, without having to dig out the field guides. I have still got a long way to go to get more knowledgeable, but it has been fun improving my knowledge significantly this year. So here is a Photospot on the Dorset Dragonflies. I will cover Dorset Damselflies & Demoiselles in another Photospot. Both Photospots are designed to give the readers an appreciation of the variety of species that can be seen, 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.

Emperor Dragonfly: Female egg-laying. This is one of the larger Dragonfly species & can be commonly found in Dorset over Summer

Living in Dorset is a real privilege as it is one of the best counties for seeing  Dragonflies on your doorstep. We have such a good selection of heaths, clean rivers & freshwater lakes that allows a great variety of species to be seen. They are not always straight-forward to identify, but that's part of the fun. Having a camera is one of the best ways to help identify them as it is a good idea to get some photos & then compare them against the book. The photos taken before Oct 13 were taken with an inexpensive Lumix camera, whereas the photos taken after that date were with the Canon 7D and usually a 15-85 Macro lens, although some of the more distant shots were taken with the 400mm f5.6 lens.

Banded Demoiselle: Male. The Demoiselles will be covered in the next post. An out of county photo from Goring-on-Thames (13 June 14)

There are a couple & inexpensive of excellent field guides to get you started:-
The Field Guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Great Britain and Ireland by Steve Brooks and Richard Lewington
Watching British Dragonflies by Steve Dudley, Caroline Dudley and Andrew Mackay
Both of these field guides provides excellent identification sections for each species as well as some cracking illustrations. A few of the vagrant species are not covered in the latter guide, but it has a lot of good site directions and species to help you find all of the regular UK species.

Common Blue Damselfly: The Damselflies will also be covered in the next post

One thing I have learnt this year, is it a good idea to get photos from as many different angles as possible. So while a top down view will provide a good in focus photo, it might not provide all the features. Often a side view of the thorax & abdomen is important to get & sometimes a face on view is also needed. The other good thing about photos taken with a good digital camera, is it allows some of the key features to be quickly zoomed up on the back of the camera to see those fine details, that might not be as easy to see in the field. Most of the Dragonflies & Damselflies are approachable with care, although some of the Hawkers can be really challenging to get a perched photo. The other good thing is like the Butterflies, you can often get some good photos with a relatively cheap digital camera, providing it can cope with close focus. Then you just need to learn how to get close without flushing your subject.

Southern Hawker: Adult with the larval case. Swanage (11 July 14). I was surprised to find this species egg-laying in moss next to my garden pond. I had assumed most species would lay their eggs in the water, but it seems this species lays eggs near to ponds & the eggs don't hatch until the following Spring. I guess the larva quickly move to the water at this point

Common Hawker: Despite its name this is not a common species in Dorset. I have seen it on the heaths around Studland, but failed to find any this year to photograph. It's always good to have a target for next year

Brown Hawker: Longham Lake (18 Aug 12)

Migrant Hawker: Male. This was one of the commoner Hawkers I saw this Autumn in Dorset and despite its name it breeds in Southern England (7 Aug 14)

Migrant Hawker: Female. South Haven, Studland (25 Aug 14)

Emperor Dragonfly: Bestwall (19 June 14)

Golden-ringed Dragonfly: East Holme Water Meadows (6 July 14)

Vagrant Emperor: I was lucky to hear this vagrant had gone to roost on a fence panel of one of the Weymouth Birders. Well worth twitching as I've not heard of any since in Dorset. Weymouth (11 May 11)

Hairy Dragonfly: This is easy to identify as it is the first of the Hawkers to fly. Soldiers Road, Hartland Heath (18 May 14)

Hairy Dragonfly: Mating pair. East Holme Water Meadows (12 July 14)

Downy Emerald: Morden Bog (26 May 13)

Downy Emerald: Studland (14 May 14)

Black-tailed Skimmer: Male. Brownsea (21 June 14)

Keeled Skimmer: Male. Greenlands Farm, Studland (3 Aug 14)

Keeled Skimmer: Female. Godlingston Heath (1 June 14)

Broad-bodied Chaser: Male. Higher Hyde (10 June 14)

Broad-bodied Chaser: Female. East Holme Water Meadows (6 July 14)

Four-spotted Chaser: Brownsea (21 June 14)

Scarce Chaser: Male. East Holme Water Meadows (12 June 14)

Scarce Chaser: Female. East Holme Water Meadows (12 June 14)

Black Darter: Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Ruddy Darter: Higher Hyde (11 July 14)

Ruddy Darter: South Haven, Studland (10 Sep 14)

Red-veined Darter: The only one I have seen was this individual at West Bexington (13 July 13)

Common Darter: As the name suggests this is a Common species which flies in the second half of the Summer & will typically carry on until the end of October or sometimes even later for the occasional individual. Arne (11 July 14)

Common Darter: I have covered the identification pitfalls between Common Darters & Red-veined Darters in this post. Rempstone Forest (3 Aug 14)

Additionally, Lesser Emperor & Yellow-winged Darter have occurred as vagrant Dragonflies in Dorset. I have been lucky enough to see Lesser Emperor at Longham Lakes in Aug 12 & Yellow-winged Darter at Holt Heath in 1994. I wasn't really into seeing Dragonflies for the latter species, but I'm glad I was persuaded to go & look for them, given how rare they are.

16 Sep 14 - Bicentennial Celebration

Back in mid May, the blog reached it's centennial post, which was a chance to look back on the first 7 months of blogging. The centennial post was split over 2 posts & was a chance to look back on the Non-Passerine & Passerine families photographed up to that point. It was great to have been able to reached that milestone and also look back on some of the great bird families I had photographed up to that date. Also it showed I was getting the enough photos and interest to keep the blog going. At the time, I was really pleased as I had just reached a total of 15,000 hits on the blog and a daily average of 150 hits a day. But I did have the advantage of some great trips over the Winter & Spring to India, Western Sahara & Morocco and Israel to provide plenty of material. I had also been to Croatia as well, but hadn't got around to putting those photos on the blog at that point.

Kingfisher: This was the first Bird photo on my first post (24 Oct 13)

Well 4 months on & I've just reached the bicentennial post. It's quite ironic that a few days ago, I was sitting in the hide at Middlebere & two of the species seen on the first morning with the camera appeared again & gave me the idea for this post. The first post all started with a Kingfisher & a Fox at Middlebere, but then went on to really challenge my fledgling photographic skills with a Pallid Swift at Stanpit. Sadly, there were no rare Swifts involved on this occasion. But at least there was a Kingfisher & it's the first I've seen at Middlebere since the first post & only my third for the site.

Kingfisher: The all black bill indicates this is a male (12 Sep 14)

Kingfisher: Back to the original wooden perch (12 Sep 14)

Kingfisher: You looking at me? (12 Sep 14)

There was also a showy Fox. This is a species I see erratically, but every few visits to Middlebere. They are generally on the approach track, but occasionally they appear in front of the hide. On the first occasion, the Fox came right up to the hide, but the individual was more wary on the recent sighting.

Fox: This was the original photo (24 Oct 13)

Fox: The recent sighting. At least it fits in the photo being further away (12 Sep 14)

So it's been a great last 100 posts. Recently I looked at the number of species of photos already on the blog & realised I have already photographed just over 5% of the Birds of the world. So just another 95% to go.

Reed Warbler: My first Reed Warbler for the blog. That's one less to the 100% target

With the Summer, there has been a lot of opportunity to blog more on other wildlife interests, other than Birds. Butterflies & Dragonflies have been a lot of fun over the Summer, with the undoubted high (& subsequent low) of finding the Map Butterflies. But it's also given me the chance to explore some of the other lesser known Insect groups that Birders rarely look at, including Grasshoppers & Bush Crickets and Shieldbugs. I look forward to more of these posts in the future, as I've really enjoyed looking at these groups and learning more about them. It's been really encouraging that people who know more about these groups are helping point out the occasional error, but good to know I'm getting nearly all the photos correctly identified.

Ruddy Darter: Dragonflies species are dropping off now, but there are still good numbers of some species. South Haven (10 Sep 14)

Another thing that has been encouraging over the last 4 months, the total number of hits has almost tripled to over 43,000 and the daily average is around the 300 hits a day. Another thing that has been fun, but I wish I had started this on day one on the blog is the flag counter. This counts countries, or to be more precise internet countries, of visitors. Thus Jersey, Guernsey & the Isle of Man all appear as flags. Big thanks to my friend Clare for reading the blog from Bhutan today & adding the 90th country since I discovered the flag counter: great timing Clare. Of these 90 countries, I've only managed to visit 38 so far. So it's interesting & really great to see how widely this blog is being read.

Flag Counter: Now up to 90 countries. Wonder if I missed any countries in the first 7 months

Certainly, the Butterflies & Dragonflies has helped to attract some additional followers. If so, I hope you enjoy the blog & will keep visiting it. There might not be so many shots of these over the coming Winter, but they will feature a lot from next Spring onwards & I've got plans for some Butterfly & Dragonfly posts to keep interest going over the next few months. Also, I've still got a couple of more Map posts to finalise, but Birding has kept me so busy, that I've not had the time to really sit down & write them yet. Hopefully I will publish these Map posts soon.

House Martin: The first post ended with a rare Swift. This commoner House Martin will have to do as a stand in. But it's another new species for the blog, just got this photographed as they start departing the UK

I am already looking forward to the next centennial milestone, I've got some exciting plans to keep the photos & ideas on the blog looking fresh, but you will have to wait till these plans develop. In the meantime, there is the important matter of the Autumn's Birding to attend to first. Let's hope there will be some good Birds for us all to enjoy. Finally, a big thank you to everybody who reads the blog. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have & you continue to follow it going forward & better still encourage your friends to have a look at it. Thank You.

11 July 14 - Ruddy Darter At Higher Hyde

After a great morning with my mate Brian Field looking at Dragonflies at Arne and finding a Red-veined Darter, there was still plenty of other things to look for. Brian had never seen Sand Lizards, so we headed for the DWT Higher Hyde reserve. On my first visit here, I had seen a sunbathing male Sand Lizard along with a couple of less showy females. But that had been a warm, but overcast, morning in early June. It was now midday on a warm & sunny day in mid July & they wouldn't need to find a black tyre to warm up on. So we were going to need some luck to see them while out hunting. We tried anyway, but only succeeded in Brian getting a couple of fleeting views of Lizards dashing into vegetation. More reason for him to come back to the Dorset in the future. But the Dragonfly bonanza continued with species 13 for the day: Ruddy Darter.

Ruddy Darter: Note, the deep red abdomen, ruddy-brown thorax, black legs & dark pterostigma. These features separate Ruddy Darters from the Red-veined Darters & Common Darters (see last Post). The males also have a distinctive pinched base to the abdomen

If we didn't have other things that Brian wanted to look for, it would have been interesting to see how many species we could have seen, given there are Scarce Chasers, Broad-bodied Chasers, Black-tailed Skimmers, Banded Demoiselles, Common Blue Damselflies & White-legged Damselflies easily found locally. Might have taken a bit more searching, but Golden-ringed Dragonflies, Beautiful Demoiselles & Southern Damselflies should be in the local area at the moment & Black Darter should just be starting to fly. So potentially it should be possible to see over 80% of the Dorset Dragonflies locally in a day. I can see I'm setting myself a challenge for another day.

Silver-washed Fritillary: Female. Good to see a few here

Ringlet

Small Skipper: It is just possible to see the edge to the orange undersides of the antennae

Small Skipper: A few more shots taken earlier in the morning at Arne

Small Skipper: A clear shot of the orange underside of the antennae of the Arne individual

Small Skipper: An upperwing shot from St Aldhelms in the afternoon, along with a Soldier Beetle