A walk round the pond - week 34

It just shows how wrong you can be, or at least how wrong I can be.  I had assumed it was getting too late see a southern hawker at the pond this year and then this week this beauty landed right in front of me.  I was doing my bumblebee walk (more below) and had only my new pocket camera (Panasonic TZ90) with me.  It was the first time I had used it and so far I am pleased with the results.  When I had finished counting bumblebees I return to the same spot with my normal dragonfly camera (Canon 7D mk II and 300mm f/4 lens) and there was still a southern hawker there although, looking at the fine details in the markings, it is not the same individual.

These are both males and they have probably been hunting and maturing away from the water before returning now in the hope of finding a mate.

I had also assumed that the common hawkers' season was over as I hadn't seen one for two weeks but the first dragonfly I saw this week was a female common hawker ovipositing.  There were at least two males on patrol as well - I think they won't be the same as the ones I saw a few weeks ago but will be later emerging individuals.

And there were several migrant hawkers, all males waiting for females.  With three species of hawker flying together it was easy to see that the migrant is smaller than the other two.

There were three species of darter this week as well.  I saw one male black darter but didn't get a photo.  This ruddy darter resting on a silver birch shows well the yellow colour at the base of his wings.

There were lots of mating pairs of common darters.

Common darters stay in tandem for ovipositing so the male can keep an eye on the female while the job is done.

This is mature female common darter.  Her colour will become brown as she gets older.

This female common darter landed on my shirt sleeve.  I managed to manoeuvre the camera with my left hand and aim it blindly to get a photo.

And there were three species of damselfly this week - a few common blues, a few blue-tailed and several emeralds.

It was time for my monthly bumblebee walk for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.  There fewer than last month as we get towards the end of the bumblebee season and there were fewer flowers for them as well.  Those I did see were red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius),

common carder bumblebee (Bombus pascuorum),

and garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum).

Here is a speckled wood butterfly taken with the new camera.

I also found the strangest moth I have ever seen.  It is a triangle plume moth and it furls its wings up when it lands. When opened, the hind wings look more like feathers.

Now I know they are there, I can find leafhoppers all over the place.  Here is a mating pair.

So it was quite a week, with three hawkers, three darters and three damselflies all flying together.  Let's hope for a few more like this.

A walk round the pond - week 33

This week I get the feeling that the season is beginning to wind down.  It is cooler, fresher and breezier, not such good weather for insects in general.  We had rain last weekend and the ponds are a couple of inches deeper, but still well below normal.  Three species of damselfly are still on the wing - emerald,

common blue,

and blue-tailed.

It is interesting that some blue-tailed males still have "immature" colouring".

In each previous week I have posted photos from only that particular week but I have also been collecting photos to show the variation in colour of the blue-tailed damselflies.  Immature males have a greenish thorax and a blue "tail"

but mature males are blue at both ends.

Females come in five colour forms.  Violet immature females (violacea)

mature into a male-type colour (typica)

or a green and brown form (infuscans).

Orange/pink immature females (rufescens)

mature into a brown form (rufescens-obsoleta).

Here is a mature male with a rufescens-obsoleta female.

Here is an immature male with a typica female.

An immature male with a violacea female.

And a mature male with a violacea female.

This is the first week I have not seen an emperor dragonfly since they first appeared in week 23.  The common hawkers also failed to appear after a shorter season, seven weeks.  Several male migrant hawkers were flying and common and ruddy darters are still plentiful.

Here are some little creatures I have never seen before.  It took me quite a while to identify them and I posted the photo on iSpot to be sure.  These are green leaf-hoppers (Cicadella viridis).  The larger turquoise ones are females and the smaller blue ones are males.  There are over 20,000 species of leaf-hoppers in the world!

Butterflies this week included female green-veined white

and male common blue.

Lots af fruits and berries are ripening in the hedges so autumn can't be far away.