I was house/ cat sitting in Kent for my son recently and had a Dragonfly and a Damselfly on my must see list. The Beautiful Demoiselle was found thanks to local birder Warren on his patch at Pittswood.
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| BEAUTIFUL DEMOISELLE male | | | | | | | | | | |
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By way of thanks i invited him to join me at Westbere Lakes the following day and we both got a lifer in the form of the Scarce Chaser Dragonfly. I picked up on an imm female in vegetation by one of the ditches then we both had a mature male perched on the edge of the Great Stour river which runs next to the lakes.
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| SCARCE CHASER immature female. |
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| SCARCE CHASER mature male. |
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My bonus was finding a Red-eyed Damselfly while i was at Dungeness RSPB. It was a bright but very breezy day and all the Damsels were hunkered down on the leeward side of any vegetation around the gravel pit pools. A female Hairy Dragonfly was also a nice suprise elsewhere on the site.
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| RED-EYED DAMSELFLY immature male with two BLUE-TAILED DAMSELS |
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| HAIRY DRAGONFLY female |
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Nice . . . would be three lifers for me as well, the north-south divide for dragonflies is just too much :-(
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem Alan. If you don't get to certain parts of the country you've got no chance with quite a few species AND it depends WHEN you do get there. I've been going to Kent for quite a few years now but not this particular couple of weeks so not had these species until now.
ReplyDeleteNice set of firsts John
ReplyDeleteSuperb Dick. All were bobby dazzlers, i have to say. I hoped for a possible Norfolk .....yes, Norfolk Hawker in Kent at Westbere but they appeared 5 days after i had left. Only place as far as i know they are seen out of Norfolk.
ReplyDeleteNow that's some shot John, Red Eyed and Blue Tails together, superb effort :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat series of pictures John, just luv the Red with the 2 blues.
ReplyDeleteJohn
Thanks Warren, John
ReplyDeleteYou always need a bit of luck with photography, as we all know, and the strong winds kept lots of Damsels huddled together in the vegetation. All taken with the 300 lens. Not used the macro in earnest yet.
Warren.
ReplyDeleteI went back the following week but only found a single Scarce Chaser on the river again but couldn't improve on what i had gotten photographically. It was another disappointing day weather wise and thunder & lightning storms were constant. Not much odonata present.