Latest Leics & Rutland Dragonfly Sightings

2 Teneral Large red Damselflies at Cossington Meadows this afternoon. First of the year for me.

East of Plungar Bridge

12 Teneral Azure Damselflies including 2 females

There was a Large Red Damselfly in our garden this afternoon, reasonably close to our small wildlife pond.

1 teneral female Red-eyed Damselfly found this evening.

Muston Meadows NNR

1 male Hairy Dragonfly hawking prey in cornfield next to the NNR

Barkestone le Vale, east of Jericho Bridge

20+ Teneral and 1 Adult Variable Damselflies

No signs of any Hairy Dragonflies. This stretch has been partially dredged recently by British Waterways. It will be interesting to see if this has an impact on this year's sightings.

As a couple of you have already noticed, the way Blogger works has changed, and this will require those signed up to this blog to make a few small changes themselves.

I have now deleted everyone from the list of authors of the "Old" Blogger in order to make way for your new registrations.

So what will you have to do?

Blogger is now owned by Google, and the "New" Blogger is proving to be a lot more reliable than the old one in terms of server connections, uploading, etc. This is very welcome news!

I have re-invited those who had signed up previously and a few others who might be interested. Please let me know about anyone else who could contribute, and I'll send them an invite as well.

It should be a relatively simple task. Please follow the instructions in the email invite you have received (if you haven't had one, let me know).

You will have to sign up for a free Google account. This is very quick and easy. If - like me - you are always a little bit concerned about signing up for any "free" internet account, I can assure you that the Google account will only require an email address and I've never had one unsolicited email from them in the several years I've had one. So don't worry about that aspect.

Once signed up you will be able to proceed as before. Anyone needing a brush up on their blogging techniques following the winter break can look at the posts here and here for a few reminders.

Please send me an email (link at the top of the page) if you have any questions or problems logging in.

Happy hunting chaps!

With the first record under our belts, and the weather apparently most unlike the traditional British spring, the odonata season is well and truly underway.

What can we expect this year?

• Early emergence dates with the continuing effects of global warming?
• Small Red-eyed Damselflies to spread across the county?
• The first County record of Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly or Scarce Chaser?
• More Red-veined Darters following last year's influx?
• More sites for Variable Damselfly or Hairy Dragonfly following recent expansions in range?

Who knows... it will be interesting to find out!

Mark Rossell recorded 8 Large Red Damselflies at Priory Water today.