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.

Summer dragonflies

I don't take as many dragonfly photos these days, mainly because I already have good photos of the species I see regularly.  I do still take record shots to convince the county recorder when I submit records and I take a few if they would make an appealing picture.  2025 has been a good year for many insects, including dragonflies, and locally we have seen good numbers of previously rare species.  Here are some of my recent pictures.

Broad-bodied Chaser.  This was the first dragonfly I saw this year and features on the front cover of the latest edition of The NHSN Magazine.

Ruddy Darter.  This is an immature male and is fairly rare in Gosforth Nature Reserve (GNR).  I like the way the wings were in focus as well.

Emperor Dragonfly, the first time I have had a reasonable photo of one on the Hepple Estate but it was a bit too close to the background to be good.  This is a male.

Brown Hawker.  We had only one previous record of a male in GNR but there was lots of activity this year.  This is a male on patrol.

And a female ovipositing.  Females were observed on several occasion over six weeks so with luck we'll end up with a breeding population in the reserve.

Another species with only a single previous record in the reserve, a Black-tailed Skimmer.  This time we had multiple males and at least one ovipositing female.  This is a male.

A male Common Hawker, also from GNR.

And mating Common Hawkers from Cragside.

A male Golden-ringed Dragonfly from Hepple.

A female Black Darter, also from Hepple.

A male Small Red-eyed Damselfly in GNR.  This species first moved north of the River Tyne last year and our reserve has the most northerly UK record.

Finally another damselfly from GNR and a new species for me.  This is a male Willow Emerald Damselfly.  The reserve has the most northerly UK record for this one as well.

The dragonfly season will soon be over.  Let's hope next year is as good as this has been.

Golden-ringed dragonflies

If I have a favourite dragonfly it is this one, the Golden-ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii). Large, spectacular and elusive, it is always a thrill to see one.

I have the privilege of helping to count dragonflies on the Hepple Estate in Northumberland National Park and last week Golden-ringed Dragonflies were the stars of the show.  The first I saw was by the Old Pond, a male patrolling over a small area and stopping frequently to have his photo taken.

With Richard Thompson, the estate ecologist and wild guide, I watched another male over the Bottom West Moor ponds.  It seemed to be patrolling rather than hunting and was frequently chased off by Four-spotted Chasers.  We moved on to the Bog Field and saw two Golden-ringed Dragonflies crashed in the grass.  Although they were male and female they weren't a mating pair and the male seemed to have the female in a headlock.

After a few minutes of stalemate he released her and proceeded to patrol the boggy field close by.

The female gradually recovered her dignity but rested for half an hour before flying off, apparently unharmed.

This short video was recorded on my phone from about a foot away and shows she was unconcerned by our presence.

I think the explanation for this episode is that the male was keen on mating and the female was resisting his advances.  In the last photo above the lower half of her abdomen is muddy so I think that she has only recently been ovipositing and wasn't ready to mate again.

The mud is intriguing because it suggests she had been laying her eggs in the waterlogged boggy field or in the pond.  Golden-ringed Dragonflies lay their eggs while bouncing down vertically into the muddy bottom in shallow water - described as being like a pogo stick or the needle on a sewing machine.

Both my guide book and the BDS website mention only rivers and streams as breeding sites for Golden-ringed Dragonflies.  However, last month we saw a female ovipositing in the Old Pond at Hepple (see photo below), I have previously seen a female in Slipper Tarn at Cragside (not far away), and this female was in a boggy area beside a pond.

I did manage to find one comment that the Golden-ringed Dragonfly "breeds in shallow peat runnels or seepages as well as lochs with exposed peaty muddy edges" and I think the Hepple Golden-ringed Dragonflies are breeding in still water as well.  I suppose the proof of this would be to find larvae in the ponds but that will be easier said than done.

The spider wraps her lunch

The dragonfly had just landed in the spider's web and was struggling to get free.  I had already rescued two from apparently abandoned old webs but this one was active and the spider pounced. The dragonfly is a teneral common darter and the spider a female cross orb-weaver (Araneus diadematus).  In the first couple of photos the spider was subduing its prey with a venomous bite.  Then it proceeded to wrap it in silk.  When I came by half an hour later the dragonfly had gone, presumably carried into cover to be devoured at leisure.

Rescue mission

We were supposed to be counting bees but I got a bit distracted by dragonflies (it happens). Then I was more distracted by something in the water.  As I wondered what it was it started swimming towards me and I realised it was a bat.  I think it was swimming batstroke.

When it reached the bank I reached down to scoop it out.  It was soaked through and was happy to sit on my hands at first, before climbing up my shirt.

The bat seemed healthy but was wet through and was not inclined to fly.  When it had dried out a bit I put it on the trunk of a large oak tree and it climbed steadily, eventually going up out of sight. My hope is that it was warm and dry enough and high enough to fly, although it may have decided to wait for dark.

Having read it up since I got home I am not sure I should have released it.  I found advice about grounded or lost bats on the Bat Conservation Trust website, although I don't think this one was in either of those situations.  

I didn't know bats could swim but then most, perhaps all, mammals can.  It is unusual for a bat to be out in the middle of a sunny afternoon but it can happen if it is hungry.  Although I didn't see it flying I wonder if this one was hunting over the pond and made a misjudgement to crash into the water.