We decided to nip out for a late afternoon encounter with some damsels at Swanwick Nature Reserve on Sunday. My main priority, once again, were the Blue-tailed – any excuse to further nailing damsels with the Sigma 70-300mm as opposed to the 105mm macro.
Here are a selection from our short visit:-
There were also several Azure and Common Blue scattered throughout the reserve
The only larger prey we saw were Black-tailed Skimmers.
As the good weather continued into Monday, I decided to revisit Ober Water, starting at the Puttles Bridge car park where once again there were Plenty of Small Red and Keeled Skimmers in the ferns and bog myrtle.
Immediately across the road in amongst the bog myrtle and heather were several more and even a few Silver-studded Blue butterflies. I kept course through the bog avoiding any difficulty, and following the upper path to Rhinefield Bridge. Besides several more Keeled and a female Emperor, I had to wait until I reached the bridge before I saw any more action.
Doubling back across the stream to a favourite area where a few Southern, Large Red and Beautiful Demoiselles were starting to populate the stream. Shortly after, at about 10.15am, I saw my one and only Golden-ringed of the day.
Once again the promising weather turned with increasing cloud and an interruption in the warming sun. This curtailed most activity and it was another half-hour before I found any sign of White-legged – several tenerals rising from the stream.
At the dog-leg there were a few normal Blue-tailed but no sign of any Scarce Blue-tailed. By now activity had picked up again, but still subdued with Azure, Southern, Large Red and more teneral White-legged. A few teneral Small Red were also present around the margins and a quite stunning teneral Beautiful Demoiselle rose before me to glide across the heather.
Despite spending a good while at the White-legged hotspot, I had to wait until the return leg before I found any mature males.
Even more sightings back over Rhinefield Bridge before I had to return. At least the walk back to the car park provided my first Common Darter of the year.
Hi Paul, loving the blog and the photo of the teneral beautiful demoiselle is stunning. Did you use your 70-300m for that and is it a macro or a zoom?
Yesterday, I found a four spotted chaser emerging from its nymph in a very smelly, boggy pond. As it wasn’t very warm with no sun, I was very surprised to find it. The situation was difficult and messy, so no beautiful pictures but I was thrilled to get what I did. I’ve put them on my website. I also caught the emerging of a common blue over the weekend. Do you have any advice as to where I may find a cleaner area to take more dragonflies emerging as I’m trying to focus hard on that this year.
Hi Kate
Thank you for your comments. You did well to capture an emergence regardless of the conditions. In my experience discovering an emergence is more luck than judgement, except in a few cases where sites are well known, such as the Common Club-tail. I’ve personally witnessed Southern Hawkers, Emperors. Large Red etc – the Emperors being a case of timing as they tend to emerge all at once at suitable sites.
Other than keeping your eyes peeled I recommend finding a suitable and familiar pond etc and watch the margins on mornings, including days when no self-respecting adult dragonfly can be seen. Some species, such as the Hairy Hawker and Golden-ringed, travel a few metres away from the margins still as a nymph before finding a suitable place to emerge.
In the case of bog-loving species you may have no other choice but to brave the conditions, but it is always worth looking low down slightly inshore. Earlier on this season I found a Broad-bodied Chaser who had just emerged deep down in the safety of a gorse bush.
The Beautiful Demoiselle had not long emerged along the bank of Ober Water, and rose for the first time at my passing where I was lucky enough to follow his flight. The shot was taken using my Sigma 70-300mm zoom from a metre away lying on my belly.
Good luck with your search and keep up the good work.
Paul
Great pics. I’m in new forest for a few days, had great day at crockford , Gold ringed posing well and plenty keeled skimmer and southern damselfly. Hopefully i llmanage some scarce blue tailed tomorrow
Hi Neil
Glad you’re having good results. Prime time for all NF species right now, and hopefully will continue during this wonderful spell of weather we’re having.
Good luck with the SBT’s. If you can e-mail me from where you are I can offer you some pointers.
Paul