East Anglian dragonflies

I booked a few days away in Wicken Fen last month, not knowing I would be in the epicentre of the red zone of the recent heatwave.  The temperature was over 30℃ every day, peaking at over 37℃, which might have been good for dragonflies but wasn't so good for me.  I was mainly out in the mornings and evenings but did manage to see some things I had never seen or never photographed before.

Wicken Fen is the National Trust's oldest nature reserve and is a haven for dragonflies.  The highlight perhaps were the Norfolk Hawkers which, unlike most other hawkers I have come across, were happy to pose for photos.  This is a male.

One species I had never seen before was Scarce Chaser, which certainly wasn't scarce there but doesn't get much farther north.  Here is a male.

And a mating pair, both looking a bit battered.

Similar in appearance but with clear wing bases and green eyes was this male Black-tailed Skimmer.

I saw several male Hairy Dragonflies but none would stop for a photo.  Then on the last morning I found female ovipositing.  Females are pretty shy so this was a good find and the first I have seen.  This is another species which doesn't get as far north as the North East. 

The Hairy Dragonfly was at the end of its flight period but also on the last morning I found a newly emerged female Southern Hawker, one we do see up here.

Also familiar were Emperor Dragonflies.

Because it isn't found in the North East I had hoped to see a Variable Damselfly, said to be common in Wicken Fen, but every blue damselfly I saw was either Common Blue or Azure.

Another one which doesn't get up here but which was common there was Red-Eyed Damselfly. Here a male.

And a mating pair.

Both at Wicken Fen and RSPB Lakenheath I found Banded Demoiselles.

Also photographed but not shown here were Four-spotted Chaser, Common Blue Damselfly, Azure Damselfly and Common Darter.  Also seen but not photographed was Brown Hawker.

Sometimes it was even a bit too hot for the dragonflies.  They are said to go into the obelisk position, pointing at the sun like this female Ruddy Darter, to prevent overheating.  I had a wonderful few days down at Wicken Fen - ten or fifteen degrees cooler and it would have been perfect.

Stoat kits in the garden

This week has seen great excitement in my garden.  I was away for a few days and on the first morning back I saw a stoat outside the front door and later one on the drive.  There had been very little stoat action on the garden trail cameras while I was away but on Monday evening there were four stoat kits running up and down the drive so I knew something had changed.  They were so fast and unpredictable that photographing them was difficult.

Later I saw more playing on a tree stump in the meadow.

After seeing the kits on the stump I set up an extra trail camera.

Here is a brief view of what they got up to on the wall.

Several times the cameras picked up a kit carrying food.  The first one here has a vole which it doesn't want to share and the second is carrying what looks like a rabbit's head.

After only 48 hours they were gone but they saved the best till last.  I had been wondering whether there were four or five but you can see on the next video there were ten!  I presume this is mother and nine kits, assuming there weren't more out of view.  A stoat family moving en masse like this is known as a caravan.

Here's another edit of the video with a slow motion replay to help count the stoats.

Jenny MacPherson's book Stoats, Weasels, Martens & Polecats says that a stoat litter usually has six to nine kits which are born in April or May and become independent at about 12 weeks. The book also says 10 stoats will eat about 0.5 kg of meat a day which translates into a lot of voles and rabbit heads so I expect this last video was the mother rounding them all up to move on because they had eaten all the food.

The cameras are still in place so I'll know if any of the stoats return.  Although they didn't stay long I am just grateful they came while I was here to see them.

RoeDeerCam

Roe deer are regular non-target captures on my trail cameras but because the cameras are set low to look for otters I usually see only the deer's knees and ankles.  Occasionally there is a good view of the whole animal, as in this recent video of a buck.  Deer have a very acute sense of smell and this one sniffed out one of the cameras.

Another video from early spring, again on a camera set to look for otters.  It begins with a doe taking a leap in the dark, then two does and a buck in daylight and buck making the return journey.  The buck still in velvet and all in their darker winter coats.  This is a very easy jump for a roe deer which could leap much higher and farther.

A new generation of ladybirds

I noticed a patch of ladybird eggs on the tine of a hand cultivator in the kitchen garden.  It seemed an odd place to lay eggs with no food for larvae within easy walking distance.  As you would expect I brought it in to take some photos and waited to see what happened.  For reference the patch of 44 eggs above is about the size of a 7-spot Ladybird and the eggs are about 1mm long. 

The next morning I noticed a spider had moved in and spun some silk.  I wasn't sure if this was setting a trap for the larvae but later that day the spider was gone although some silk remained.

Two days later, early in the morning the larvae were hatching.  You can see that in fact it is the larvae that are yellow and the eggs are white.  Very soon the larvae were turning black.

Less than two hours later all but two eggs had hatched and half the larvae were black.

 At nine hours this was the view with most larvae black.

I put the cultivator out in the meadow overnight, expecting that the larvae would move off to find something to eat but next morning it looked as though they were all still in place.  This is the view at 24 hours after hatching.  The larvae look significantly bigger.

And this was the view at 34 hours and there seemed to be fewer larvae.  The cultivator was back in the meadow between photos so some could have moved away but ladybird larvae are notoriously cannibalistic so I wonder if some of the bigger ones had eaten some of the smaller ones.  Who knows?

By 48 hours they had all gone and most of the remaining egg shells looked to have been eaten by slugs.

Ladybird eggs and new larvae all look pretty much the same and can't be identified to species. As they get older the larvae develop individual markings and can usually be identified.  The eggs are laid over several weeks, mostly from late spring to mid summer.  Elsewhere in the meadow I could see lots of 7-spot Ladybird larvae of different sizes and ages feasting on the blackfly on the knapweed.

And a 14-spot Ladybird larva getting in on the action as well.

I also saw an adult 7-spot Ladybird but I can't tell if it is one of the last generation or the first of the next.  Probably the former.

Stoat news

First a stoat I met while counting dragonflies at Hepple.  I saw it running through the grass pursued by a crow, presumably hoping to steal any catch.  The stoat then ran straight up an enormous ash tree and was searching for bird nests while being mobbed by anxious small birds. My camera was in static dragonfly mode (manual focus, single exposure, slow speed, low ISO, etc) and the only change I could make quickly was to autofocus but I managed a few photos.

In this photo the blur on the right is one of the birds mobbing the stoat.

The stoat didn't find a nest and eventually gave up and ran straight down the tree as agile and as confident as a squirrel.

The stoat in the garden has been frustrating, as stoats often are.  I saw it by the gate with something in its mouth, possibly a kit, and it ran across into the meadow, towards the wall.  I fetched a camera and stood waiting for half an hour in case it returned.  Just as I gave up it came back with a second kit but I missed the photo.  So I fetched a tripod and stood waiting for nearly an hour but it didn't reappear.  It also didn't show on the cameras on the wall so I don't know where it went to.  There are plenty of other log piles, stone piles and brash piles in the copse so it could be that there is a stoat nest in there somewhere.

The cameras can only see the front of the wall and the stoat does appear a few times a week. Mostly it just runs by but sometimes it does a dance.  This is the most recent.

Another taste of what the stoat gets up to.  It does seem to be aware of the cameras.

One time it pulled a rabbit out of the hat, almost literally.  The rabbit isn't full grown and isn't very fresh and this was the only camera that saw it.  You can hear a blackbird alarm in the background.

I live in hope that the stoat will keep the kits in the garden and that they may yet appear on the cameras.