Last hurrah

Apologies first of all for the lack of postings recently. I've discovered Twitter and have to say i enjoy using it. It's instant and i can post thoughts or comments as i think of them and importantly before i've forgotten.
Last week the weather was superb and was a chance to go seek out a few dragonflies. It has been an awful year for odonata thanks to the indifferent weather. I found myself cancelling the few dragon outings i had planned and can only remember using the macro lens once in earnest. I visited Banks Pond near Dinnington on three occasions in seven days. The last visit was relatively quiet and although the sun was shining initially there was a chill in the air and when some light cloud drifted over the drop in temperature was noticeable. Despite the conditions and lack of numbers i did get my best dragon of the week. I espied a Hawker moving around the perimeter of the site and thankfully it dropped down into the vegetation at the north end. As i approached i could see it was a female and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a Common, a species i hadn't seen here before. On a later date i bumped into Peter Fletcher at Tynemouth and asked if he had seen any Common at Banks but said as far as he could recall he hadn't. A handful of Common Darters were perched on stones at the north end absorbing as much heat as possible. I found a single Black Darter and spotted two Migrant Hawkers eventually on the lookout for females on the larger pond. I was only there for just over an hour.

On the second of the three visits i was with THE Howdon Blogger and we had good numbers of Common Darters many of which were in tandem ovipositing. Hard to give exact numbers but possibly 20- 30 on the larger pond and 10-15 on the smaller. Great to watch as they danced about the water. A few Ruddy Darters were favouring the sphagnum moss around the perimeter while a half a dozen Black Darters  were in the spagnum and grasses close by.

 Three male Migrant Hawkers were patrolling the the reed beds, one of which came close as i sat by the smaller pond having a drink, its wings clattering the reed stems as it passed. John put me onto a pair of Migs in tandem flying but they were distant and heading off into the trees. I did however manage to capture a couple of in flight dragons.