Latest Leics & Rutland Dragonfly Sightings

PLEASE NOTE - USE THE FORUM FOR LATEST SIGHTINGS!

2008-05-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have changed how we collect our latest sightings - instead of using the blog, please leave a message on the Forum.

Thank you! :)

Priory Water 11th May 2008

2008-05-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Late news from the reserve this afternoon, two more new species for the season!

Tim Goodlife found a single Banded Demoiselle on the river that runs through the reserve and also two male Common Blue Damselflies. That brings the species total for this year to 9, not bad for early May!

Langar, Notts, 11th May 2008

2008-05-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

It may not be Leicestershire but it is only just over the border!

This evening an immature (form violacea) female Blue-tailed Damselfly flew into our lounge via the open french window. Quick action from my wife saved it from our dog and we placed it on our bottle brush plant out of harms way.

Priory Water 11th May 2008

2008-05-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Numbers continue to increase on a daily basis. Four-spotted Chaser continues to be the only Dragonfly seen so far, despite finding an empty Hairy Dragonfly exuvia in reeds on the reserve yesterday. Good numbers of Variable, Azure, Blue-Tailed, Red-eyed & Large Red Damselflies continue to be present with masses of new teneral insects emerging during the day.

Grantham Canal, 11th May 2008

2008-05-11T03:32:00.000-07:00

Plungar Bridge

Today I came across a mass emergence of Four-spotted Chasers approximately 100 metres east of Plungar Bridge. There were at least 8 in the process of emerging plus an exuvia without a nearby teneral There were also small numbers of teneral and adult Azure and Variable Damselflies.

Priory Water 10th May 2008

2008-05-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

Sightings from today at Priory Water included the first two teneral Four-spotted Chasers of the season, plus 3 teneral Red-eyed Damselflies & several Blue-tailed Damselflies. The number of Variable Damselflies is increasing rapidly which is excellent news and comfirms that the species is now well established as a breeding species on the reserve. Both Large Red Damselfly and Azure Damselfly are now also present in large numbers.

Priory Water 8th May 2008

2008-05-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

A quick walk around this evening produced the first Variable Damselfly of the season, a single teneral male, unfortunately it didn't stay around long enough for its photo to be taken!. There are now large numbers of Large Red Damselflies, many of them now fully mature. Azure Damselfly numbers are also increasing daily. We are expecting the first Dragonflies any day now!

Grantham Canal 6th May 2008

2008-05-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

Plungar to "Weak Bridge" at Barkestone le Vale

3 teneral Large Red Damselfly

4 teneral Variable Damselfly

3 teneral Azure Damselfly

Although sunny and hot, the wind was causing the damselflies to seek shelter in the waterside vegetation except for one brave female Azure, which was clinging for dear life to the tip of a horse-tail !

Priory Water 5th May 2008

2008-05-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

There are now plenty of Large Red Damselflies on the wing, with both tenerals and more mature individuals being present as well as many more emerging in the bankside vegetation.

Today also saw the first two Azure Damselflies of the season, Tim Goodlife found two tenerals whilst out and about on the reserve this afternoon.

Rutland Water 04/05/08

2008-05-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

There were 5+ teneral Large Red Damselflies still close to their empty exuvia in the vegetation around the small pond in front of the entrance to the Lyndon visitor centre this morning.

Grantham Canal 3rd May 2008

2008-05-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

Barkestone le Vale

1 teneral Large Red Damselfly in flight.

Also several butterflies including Holly Blue, Green-veined White, Orange Tip, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock and Grizzled Skipper.

Priory Water 1st May 2008

2008-05-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

The 2008 season at Priory Water got underway today with the appearance of three Large Red Damselflies, 2x teneral females & a single teneral male.

Burbage Common, Friday, October 5th, 2007

2007-10-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

Migrant Hawker 3

Southern Hawker 2

Common Darter Several pairs ovipositing

Blue-tailed Damselfly 1

Vale of Belvoir, Thursday, 4 October, 2007

2007-10-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Repeat of my MTB ride around the bridleways of the Notts/Leics border and the towpath of the Grantham Canal from Barkestone le Vale to Stathern Lodge. Although numbers were down the following species were still active:

Migrant Hawker (male & female)

Southern Hawker (male & female)

Common Darter (male & female)

Vale of Belvoir, September 10th, 2007

2007-09-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Bridleways around Barkestone, Plungar and Harby and Grantham Canal Towpath from Barkestone to Stathern Lodge.

An MTB ride along these routes resulted in an encouraging number of sightings. Although no damselflies were seen the following dragonflies were active along the sunny and sheltered southern sides of the hedgerows:

Common Darter

Ruddy Darter

Migrant Hawker

Southern Hawker

Brown Hawker (1 rather ragged looking specimen on the Grantham Canal)

Photo Gallery and Forum Info

2007-09-07T02:13:00.001-07:00

Two quickies:

I have created a new thread in the forum that explains how to register for and upload photos to the photo gallery: click here.

Also, I have started a thread to discuss this sightings page, and whether you think it would be more convenient to do away with the blog and use the forum to add latest sightings to the website instead. It would be just as easy to use and would mean just login for the forum and one for the gallery (both of which you can stay semi-permanently logged into).

Please let me know what you think: click here.

Priory Water 5th September 2007

2007-09-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

There are still 10 species on the wing on the reserve, not a bad count for early September.

Migrant Hawker

Brown Hawker

Southern Hawker

Common Darter

Ruddy Darter

Common Blue Damselfly

Blue-Tailed Damselfly

White-Legged Damselfly - 3 mature males

Small Red-Eyed Damselfly - Several males plus an ovipoisiting pair

Red-Eyed Damselfly - single mature female, a late record for the reserve

Female COMMON HAWKER at New Lount NR last week

2007-08-31T18:07:00.000-07:00

From Matt Cole:

I took the attached 2 photos last week at Lount - am I right in thinking these are of a female Common Hawker? The yellow costa seems to be the giveaway. I believe these are very scarce in Leicestershire though?

Correct, Matt, VERY scarce. There is only one previous Leicestershire & Rutland record that has been fully documented and accepted: a well-described specimen at Saltersford Valley, Oakthrope, on 17th August 2001. There have been other reports, but this is a difficult dragonfly to identify and mistaken identity has been suspected and indeed proven in the past. As far as I am aware, these are the first photos of a Common Hawker in the county... and wow, what photos! Congratulations Matt, a stunning find!

Small Red-eyed Damselflies

2007-08-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of records from the last few weeks (apologies for the late posting, due to the website update):

From Andy Mackay:

Second-hand report, but probably reliable: a friend of Caroline Dudley (co-author of the new dragonfly book) saw a male Small Red-eyed Damselfly on Lagoon II some time over the weekend of the 18th-19th August (and photographed it apparently, but I haven't seen the photo).

There's also a photo of a Small Red-eyed at RW (doesn't say exactly where) on John Wright's blog, and I finally saw one there on August 25th.

From Dave Scott:

Newton Croft Farm Lake, Newton Harcourt 7th August:
Small Red-eyed Damselfly: 3 ovipositing pairs plus three males.
Good numbers of Red-eyed, Blue-tailed and Common Blue Damselflies, ovipositing Emperor, Black-tailed Skimmer and Common Darter

Grantham Canal, August 27, 2007

2007-08-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

Barkestone le Vale: "Weak Bridge" to Pipe Bridge

A fairly quiet day despite warm, sunny conditions. Species seen were:

Migrant Hawker

Brown Hawker

Southern Hawker

Common Darter

Ruddy Darter

Possible female Vagrant Darter (see photos)

Blue-tailed Damselfly (only 1 seen)

Emerald Damselfly (1 immature male)

NEW FORUM - PLEASE READ!

2007-08-27T03:47:00.000-07:00

[ I am trying to fix a bug in the gallery using Internet Explorer which stacks the main links one on top of the other instead of side by side. I have no idea why it's doing this, why it's just the gallery, and why it's still fine in Firefox. I really hate computers sometimes! ]

As you will now see, the new LRDG Forum is up and running. It's quick and easy to sign up* - please take a look, sign up and start posting!

If you have any questions or problems using the forum, there is a very useful Help Section, and you can always post on the forum with your questions and comments. It's highly configurable for users - you have your own personal message centre, profile, etc.

I would like this to be the last post on the blog that isn't related to a sighting (apart from maybe the occassional major news item). I know I'm pretty much the only person who puts non-sightings here anyway, but I really want to draw attention to the forum and the ease at which everyone can share their views.

There's also the possibility that the forum could eventually take over the latest sightings if it proves more popular/usable than the blog.

The Forum has two sections so far - News and Announcements, and Dragonfly Chat (which is not a new species of bird!)

* At the moment I have it set to register anyone who goes through the signup process automatically, meaning you can sign up and post right away. This does open the forum to spammers to some extent. If it gets too much for the forum Moderators** to deal with, I'll change it so that new signups have to be validated by a Moderator before they can post.

** I'm also on the lookout for one or two regular visitors to this site who would be willing to join me as Moderators of the forum. All that means is that when browsing the forum, you'd have the ability to edit and delete "dodgy" posts, block spammers, ban users, etc, as and when these things are encountered. Please let me know if you would be willing to do this.

Grantham Canal, August 25, 2007

2007-08-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

Plungar Bridge to Old Railway Bridge (Bridge 47A)

An increase in activity over recent weeks due to the warmer weather and sunshine. Damselfly numbers were very low but Hawkers and Darters were quite numerous.

Species present were:

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Common Blue Damselfly

Common Darter

Migrant Hawker (top right)

Southern Hawker (bottom right)

Brown Hawker

We're back!

2007-08-23T17:48:00.001-07:00

Sorry the update took so long and I hope you like the new-look website! As you will see it is far from complete at the moment but I'm working on it.

The two new features of most interest are the photo gallery and forum.

The photo gallery is very versatile and will allow those who want to sign up to add their own photos directly to the archive. New photos added to the gallery will appear in the Latest Photos section as well as the species category for that photo.

The forum is still in need of some TLC from me, but it is usable as from now. Both the gallery and the forum have to be signed up for, but it is a very simple process.

After giving the issue considerable thought, I have decided the best way for us to do this in the future is to have the blog (sightings) pages - ie: these pages - as purely for the latest sightings (and maybe brief messages about important news, such as this message) and have all other news and views in the forum, which is far better suited to discussion.

I will be contacting all our regular contributors with more info about contributing to the gallery and forum in due course. If you are not yet a contributor but would like to be, please contact Richard Fray.

And feel free to let me know what you think of the update, and what can be done to improve the website.

Cheers!

"Watching British Dragonflies" to be launched at Birdfair

2007-08-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

From the Wildlife Books website:

"Watching British Dragonflies" by Steve Dudley, Caroline Dudley and Andy Mackay:

THIS TITLE WILL BE LAUNCHED AT THE RUTLAND BIRDFAIR ON FRIDAY 17th AUGUST 2007. PRE PUBLICATION PRICE OF 24.50 VALID UNTIL 19th AUGUST 2007

This book seems sure to become an important resource for UK odonata enthusiasts. Click here for more details and here to pre-order.

Wymondham Rough Nature Reserve, August 11, 2007

2007-08-11T06:49:00.000-07:00

This nature reserve includes a variety of habitats including grassland, woodland and section of the Oakham Canal. Location is SK 831174

Species seen include:

Southern Hawker (illustrated right)

Brown Hawker

Ruddy Darter

Common Darter

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Common Blue Damselfly

The Brown Hawkers were doing a superb impression of Barn Owls by quartering the grassland adjacent to the railway line.