Late summer dragonflies

It has been a funny old season for dragonflies, warm and sunny in June, cool, cloudy and wet in July and August and hot in early September.  Good for early and late species, less so in mid season.  Even now it is still relatively warm and there are hawkers and darters on the wing.  Here are a few of my sightings in the past few weeks.

A male common hawker at Cragside.

An immature male migrant hawker at Gosforth.

A mature male migrant hawker at Gosforth.

A male southern hawker at Gosforth.

A female migrant hawker at Gosforth.

Migrant hawkers at Gosforth.

Common darters at Cragside.

Black darters at Cragside.

Male common darters at Hepple Whitefield.

A male ruddy darter at Gosforth.

A male black darter at Gosforth.

Younger and older emerald damselflies at Hepple Whitefield.

That's probably it for the season although common darters and migrant hawkers will be around for a while.  It will be six months before I see a large red damselfly next spring.

Out and about in August

This is a rather belated look back at a few things I saw in August.  It was a good month for seeing dragonflies, especially hawkers in nearby Gosforth Nature Reserve.  It was no surprise to see southern hawkers or migrant hawkers but there have been far more sightings of common hawkers than in previous years.  Common hawkers aren't usually easy to photograph as the males never seem to stop flying but I did see this one pause to catch his breath.

There have been many sightings of ovipositing females, good evidence that there is now a breeding population.

These are female and male southern hawkers.

And these are male and female migrant hawkers.

I even took a phone photo of a female migrant hawker.

At the end of the month I led a late season dragonfly walk in the reserve.  We saw eight species of odonata, including one I had just explained we wouldn't see, a male black darter.  This is a rare sighting for the reserve so I was pleased to get a record shot on my little travel soon, the only camera I was carrying.

There were lots of butterflies on the wing in August.  Here are just three, painted lady, small copper and peacock.

My Agapanthus Royal Blue has been putting on a spectacular show and has been a magnet for bees and hoverflies.

There wasn't much rain in the month but during one rain shower I saw two wood pigeons bathing in a puddle, behaviour I haven't seen before.  For more than five minutes they were both holding their wings up to get them washed underneath by the rain.

Also in the garden a rare sighting of two Gallus gallus domesticus, relatives of the South-east Asian red jungle fowl.

Otherwise foxes, a weasel, moths and the sparrowhawk have been keeping me occupied - all reported previously. August weather was pretty unremarkable compared with reports from other parts of the country and the world.  Here it was drier than usual with average temperature and rainfall.

An away day

After all the restrictions of the last 18 months it seems quite an expedition to go even as far as Cragside, a round trip of only 50 miles.  I went to Slipper Tarn to look at the dragonflies and I was pleased I went early, partly to miss the crowds and because as soon as I arrived I found a female common hawker already laying her eggs.

Common hawkers usually lay tight in to the edge of the water but this one also ventured out into the middle of the pond, something I haven't seen before.

There were lots of male common hawkers on patrol but none stopped for a photo.  Then I found one freshly emerged and still expanding his wings while hanging on to his exuvia.

A few minutes later the wings were outstretched and he took his maiden flight.

Cragside is the best place I know to see black darters and they were out in numbers.  Here is a male.

And a female.

And a mating pair.

Common darters were common, but not as common as black darters.

I also saw plenty of damselflies - azures,

emeralds,

and large reds.

I found several darter exuviae, only 13mm long so very probably from black darters, our smallest dragonflies.  It is amazing that a 29-34mm long dragonfly comes out of a 13mm exuvia.

I also retrieved the common hawker exuvia for a photo.  This is 44mm long yet the dragonfly is around 70-80mm.

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.