A bite of lunch

Dragonflies are carnivores and eat all sorts of insects, often eating their smaller prey on the wing.  I saw this rather tatty four-spotted chaser fly up in front of me and return to its perch.  It was only when I looked closer that I realised it had caught a blue-tailed damselfly and was in the process of eating it.

It started at the front end and ate the whole thing.

Here the last bit of the blue tail is about to disappear.

Then time for a rest.

Four-spotted chasers are sometimes caught and eaten by still larger dragonflies such as emperors, something I have yet to see.

Black-tailed skimmers

I recently had the pleasure of going on a dragonfly walk with Dr Gordon Port, an entomologist from Newcastle University, organised by the Natural History Society of Northumbria.  A few days beforehand we did a reconnaissance walk around Bowes Valley Nature Reserve in Gateshead and saw plenty of dragonflies, including black-tailed skimmers.  This is a species I haven't previously seen in the North East.  It likes to rest on exposed soil or gravel and there aren't that many suitable sites locally.  This also makes for fairly scruffy photos because of the background and I couldn't find one facing the camera.  We found it easy to see the black tail in flight, to distinguish it from a broad-bodied chaser which also has blue pruinescent colouring.  This is a mature male.

This is an immature male.

Then last week I went to a site very close to home, Weetslade Colliery Country Park.  It is a reclaimed colliery spoil heap and I was pleased to find tens of hectares of wild flowers less than 1km from my garden as the bee flies.  Sadly the Northumberland Wildlife trust has fenced off all the wetland areas behind "No Access" signs but some of the dragonflies had sneaked over the fence to bask on the path.  And there was a black-tailed skimmer!  Again it was on mud and wouldn't face the camera.

I reported it to the British Dragonfly Society via iRecord and found it was only the fourth record in 10 years in the vice-county (VC67).  According to Harry Eales in Dragonflies & Damselflies of Northumberland & Durham (available on line here) the first ever black-tailed skimmer record in VC67 was in 2009 and it remains "very scarce" so I was very pleased to find this one so close to home.

Whilst at Weetslade I also saw common darters and emerald damselflies on the path so who knows what else lies in the forbidden area?  I wasn't looking for birds and didn't really have the right lens but I did notice a male reed bunting

and a young sedge warbler.

Having discovered what a promising place it is I'll have to make more regular visits.

Family photos

When this all started a month ago it was almost always the dog fox that arrived first, either to check that the coast was clear for the cubs or to be first to the food.  Since then the number of cubs in the garden has increased from one to five and the parents have been here less and less often, as if they are leaving the food for the cubs.  So it was good to see both parents here together for once.  The dog fox to the left is greyer while the vixen has a darker back.

They were joined by a cub that is almost as big as its mother already.

Then a second cub but they wouldn't keep still so the photos are a bit blurred (the shutter speed in the low light is only 1/60s).

I haven't yet managed a picture of both parents with all the cubs.  I see three or four cubs together every night.

Most often they get along well but there is always an undercurrent of competition.

The change from peanuts to dog biscuits has also meant that the cubs spend more time collecting and stashing food which also makes them more difficult to catch all together.  It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next few weeks as they get older.

A walk round the pond - Week 29

I had company for a visit to the pond on Tuesday.  Liz, Denise & Phil joined me to prove that eight eyes are better than two.  The find of the day was Liz's, an over-mature female broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa) resting in the afternoon sunshine.  It was bright yellow in its younger days.

I think my companions were surprised by how many photos I had to take to end up with two that were worth keeping. For this particular dragon it was 125(!), which is unusual but not exceptional.

We also saw several four-spotted chasers (Libellula quadrimaculata) patrolling, ovipositing or resting.

Denise spotted this male ruddy darter (Sympetrum sanguineum), the first I have seen with mature colouring this year.

There were also plenty of common darters (Sympetrum striolatum).

Phil found an ovipositing female emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) out on the pond but it was a long time before I could pick it out to get a photo.

We also saw several patrolling males and this one at rest.

We saw common blue, azure and blue-tailed damselflies but no large reds.  This male emerald damselfly (Lestes sponsa) shows pale blue pruinescence - a new word for Phil.

The female's colouring is more subtle but equally beautiful.

Butterflies included a common blue, lots of small skippers, ringlets and meadow browns, plus several small heaths, a new species for Phil.

We saw several shaded broad bar moths after I had seen my first last week.

The whole site was humming with insects, most of which we couldn't name.  This is one of 18 UK species of lacewing. Having looked it up since I got home I think it is Chrysopa perla.

And the best news of all - no Canada geese.  Maybe the greylags will feel it is safe to return.

Comings and goings

The first fox usually arrives at about 9.30pm and all the food has gone in less than an hour.  Despite that the foxes seem to come and go all night, perhaps using the garden as a thoroughfare or perhaps checking that I didn't get up in the middle of the night to put out more food.  They are very wary of the trail cameras and although they will tolerate them near the food they generally try to avoid them elsewhere in the garden.  They use four main entry points to the garden so I put a camera to watch one of them for one night.

The dog fox and a cub arrived from the golf course before dark (the others presumably came in a different way) and the fox traffic continued until dawn.  I put together a short montage of the video clips.

DeerCam in Somerset

My sister Cherry has badgers, deer and rabbits in her garden which have been a constant nuisance over the years as they raid the vegetables.  She and her husband John have solved the problem this year by building a 2m high fence all around the kitchen garden.  When I went to stay in Somerset recently I took a couple of trail cameras, hoping some of the local wildlife was still around despite being kept out of the vegetables.  The badgers didn't show up that night (perhaps they are sulking because they can't get at the strawberries) but I did get pictures of a roe buck and a doe. The buck has a particularly impressive set of antlers.  He also has a couple of chunks missing from his right ear.  When I have seem similar ears in other mammals the injuries have come from biting during fighting.  I am not sure how his ear came to look like this - possibly from rival's antlers in jousting during the rut.  Whatever the cause it makes him easy to identify.

There was one doe on the cameras as well.

Cherry met the doe in the orchard a few days later and even had time to go back to the house to fetch a camera.

8 out of 10 foxes prefer ...

... anything to peanuts.  I have been feeding the foxes almost every night for 18 months, mostly with peanuts.  They will eat them because they are food and are free but, given the choice, they prefer almost anything else.  Best of all is a rabbit or a squirrel, so long as they don't have to catch it themselves.  They are also very fond of chicken skin and bones, although the cubs' teeth aren't yet strong enough for the biggest bones.

Recently I tried small dog biscuits and they are also preferred to peanuts (the foxes eat all the biscuits first, then the peanuts).  I worked out that the biscuits are less than half the price, and are more photogenic as they are less bright on the photos, so that's what I am now giving them.

As you can see above I am having more trouble getting the cubs to sit still for a photo.  It doesn't help when dad turns up and distracts them.

The next night another favourite - a date-expired egg from the fridge.  A cub had a look first but didn't take it.

Then the dog fox was interested.

But another cub dashed in and snatched it.

Fortunately there was a second egg so the dog took that.

So now as well as sacks of peanuts and sunflower hearts for the birds I am buying sacks of biscuits for the foxes.