Out and about in July

I haven't been able to get out and about so much this year, for obvious reasons, but I went on a small expedition on the last day of July to Slipper Tarn, a small acidic pond surrounded by tall trees in the National Trust's Cragside Estate at Rothbury.  It is a good place to see dragonflies and there were hundreds on the wing on the hottest day of the year so far.  The most numerous by far were black darters and you can see how small they are from this immature male on my hand.

This is a mature male.

A newly-emerged female.

And a mating pair.

I could see lots of patrolling male hawkers but they were flying incessantly in the heat.  I didn't manage a single photo of a southern hawker but did find this pair of common hawkers in deep shade in a rhododendron.

I saw at least half a dozen other mating pairs but they mostly flew high into the trees out of sight or out of the range of the camera.

One surprise was seeing lots of large red damselflies as they seem already to have disappeared from ponds closer to home.

Earlier in the month I saw a pair of mating emperors at Banks Pond, the second time in three weeks and the second time ever.

Common darters are now very common

and I have seen a few ruddy darters.

I keeping promising myself that I won't get too interested in hoverflies but some of them are quite striking.  This one is another bumblebee mimic, a male Eristalis intricaria.

This one is a female Volucella pellucens.

And this one is a female Xylota sylvarum.  All three IDs confirmed by the kind folks on the UK Hoverflies Facebook page. 

On another expedition I went looking for a golden-ringed dragonfly but didn't find one.  I did find some butterflies including a comma,

a small pearl-bordered fritillary, the first I have ever seen,

a small tortoiseshell,

and dozens of ringlets.

The last two times I have been to Banks Pond there has been only one adult swan and only three cygnets.  I think the missing swans have been predated as there were a lot of feathers around and the surviving adult looked sad and was letting the cygnets swim around on their own.