29 Monday Aug 2022
Posted in insects
A fanciful post on this bank holiday Monday: of course, this Common darter isn’t really winking – I just happened to have caught it moving its head up and back again – but, with a healthy dose of my vivid imagination, the movement has transformed into a cheeky wink.
03 Wednesday Aug 2022
Posted in insects
The latest dragonfly species for 2022 to blip on my inexpert odonata radar is this Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) that was lurking amongst the brambles along a local footpath. I disturbed it with my blundering and it flew off, hawking a few insects as it wove this way and that. Fortunately, after a couple of minutes, the hawker returned to its perch, and I was able to get a closer look and a few photos.
16 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
The latest odonata species to fly on to my 2022 sightings list is the Southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea), a blue-and-green-coloured male patrolling the woodland rides at a local woodland last Sunday 10 July and, yesterday, a brown-and-green female perched on the bramble poking through a mesh fence bordering a local high school. These beautiful beasties fly from June to October and are often seen quite a distance from water, as mine were.
Dragonflies fascinate me, especially their ‘flying mechanism’, that part of their thorax where the two pairs of wings are attached to their body. My Europe’s Dragonflies field guide describes how ‘Dragonfly wings are remarkably strong and light, but flexible, with a complex highly evolved structure. They are powered by strong muscles in the thorax, with neurons connected directly to the brain.’
01 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
Common darters have been out and about in my locale for the past week, though they are still few and far between, and flighty. This little darling is the first I’ve managed to sneak up on for some reasonable photos.
28 Tuesday Jun 2022
Posted in insects
Though the British Dragonfly Society website says this species ‘favours lakes, slow rivers, ponds and occasionally marshy area[s], that have open water and bare patches along the shore’, I usually find Black-tailed skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) locally in wildflower fields and along woodland rides, not always with water or damp habitat nearby.
Perhaps it’s their flexibility in preferred habitat that has enabled this dragonfly to spread so widely – the BDS website again: ‘Quite common in south-east Britain. This species has spread significantly in both England and Wales since the late 1980s.’ Although I saw my first Black-tailed skimmer of the year over three weeks ago, on 2 June, this particular skimmer is the first I’ve managed to get close enough to for reasonable photographs.
05 Thursday May 2022
Posted in insects
Golden dragon sounds like the name of a Chinese restaurant but no! This particular golden dragon is a Broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa), my first dragonfly of the year and a glorious glowing beauty, I’m sure you’ll agree. Now that my long lens is out of action and I’ve only got my point-and-shoot camera for photos, I didn’t think I’d be able to get good dragonflies shots this year. But this dragon was busy munching on its lunch so I was able to get quite close.
25 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
I think I can safely predict that there will be more Common darters at Casehill Woods next year after catching this pair procreating in today’s warm sunshine. The male had found himself the perfect perch on this Ash sapling and, as always with dragonflies, the female looks like she’s hanging on for dear life.
20 Tuesday Jul 2021
Tags
Black-tailed skimmer, British dragonflies, Broad-bodied Chaser, dragonfly, Emperor, Southern hawker
Our local dragonflies seem to relish this hot summer weather we’ve been experiencing, but they are so speedy and flighty I find them quite difficult to photograph. Fortunately, these few were more co-operative …
Black-tailed skimmer
Emperor
Broad-bodied chaser
Southern hawker
16 Friday Oct 2020
You might think, as I certainly did, that the much cooler overnight temperatures we’re now experiencing here in south Wales would mean an end to the hawking flights of dragonflies over our fields and along our hedgerows but I was rather dramatically proved wrong during yesterday’s meander around Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. I didn’t spot just one or two Migrant hawkers but seven (!), the most I’ve seen in one day ever. These are three of them, two of the males and the solitary female. A delight of dragonflies!
22 Saturday Aug 2020
Though Common darters are now, well, common around my local haunts, I’ve seen very few of the larger dragonflies this year, perhaps because last year’s extremely dry summer caused many local ponds to dry up completely. These are two recent finds …
This Southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea) was patrolling a section of a local bridle way/cycle path/walking track called Mile Road and, though I walk this lane quite often, I only saw the dragonfly once. Perhaps it decided the amount of horse/cycle/people traffic along the lane wasn’t conducive to good insect hunting.
I watched this Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) for several minutes on Thursday before it finally settled on a nearby tree (I often feel like my head is waving around like I’m a spectator at some kind of crazy tennis match when I’m watching dragonflies). The perch was a little high up for crisp photos but I was pleased to see this, my first Migrant hawker of the year.
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.