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Small Red-eyed Damselflies in Warwickshire
* Small Red-eyed Damselfly Erythromma viridulum has now made it into Leicesterhsire & Rutland - first recorded at Priory Water on 22nd July 2006. On Saturday 14th August, 2004, the Warwickshire Dragonfly Group visited Priory Country Park, Bedford to see and learn about the Small Red-eyed Damselfly Erythromma viridulum which, following its first discovery in Essex in 1999, is rapidly colonizing the country. We were expecting it to be found in Warwickshire very soon, hence the visit to Bedford to familiarize ourselves with it. Steve Cham, our leader and expert on the species, made a remark to the effect that: I expect a mail from Warwickshire on Sunday reporting the first Small Red-eyed Damselfly in the county. Kay and I set off this morning to visit a few sites we thought promising. The sun was bright with small cumulus clouds and it was warm. At out first site, Frankton Ponds a known Red-eye site, we drew a blank. The second site, a (previously) disused branch of the Oxford canal historically well covered in weed, was useless, very recently dredged and destined to be used for mooring boat we presumed. Sad. The third site was the Swift Valley Reserve, Rugby (SP503778). This is a local nature reserve owned by the Rugby Borough Council and managed by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. It has another (still) disused branch of the Oxford Canal and some pools recently excavated (about 5 years ago) to diversify the habitat. Nothing on the canal. The weather was now getting more cloudy than sunny and looking even blacker to windward. We approached the pool without a great deal of expectation. Walked along the bank. Yes, there are Red-eyes, but are they Small? Binos clamped to eyes, trying to control the the tension tremors. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!! There they were, three Small Red-eyed males, time 1300hrs. Interestingly, they were using dead floating reed stems as perches. After a dance, we settled down to scan the pool more carefully. Between 10 and 20 males were seen. Flying and interacting with each other in small local groups of 3 or 4. Most were perching on dead floating reed stems, some on Common Duckweed, Lemna minor. It was warm, but got duller and there were a couple of episodes of light rain. The Small Red-eyes stayed on the pool vegetation. No females were seen at all and of course no breeding activity. Probably this was because the weather was dull, but, may be it is the males who are the pioneers. After a couple of hours or so we left to check out another possible site but the weather deteriorated and we returned home, elated, for a late lunch/early tea. There seemed to be no Hornwort or Water Milfoil in the pool which are believed to be favoured by them. There was a considerable amount of Ivy-leafed Duckweed Lemna trisula in the areas the Small Red-eyes were and some of the dreaded Water-Tyme Elodea spp. This site is probably not optimum for Red-eyes, at least, compared to the Bedfordshire sites we visited yesterday. We will be looking for more sites and breeding activity next week, weather permitting. If you get the opportunity go out too and add a new species to your Warwickshire list. If you do find it, please let us know where, when, etc. it so it can be entered into the county records. Peter Reeve, Co-ordinator Warwickshire Dragonfly Group See Ian Merrill's excellent ID article here. |
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