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Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Dragonfly Mega .. Red-veined Darter !... Odonata Bonanza Monday part 2

I was feeling most satisfied Monday afternoon, with Club-tailed Dragonfly added to my list that morning. Having slipped around the river bank for 3 hours, I was planning a leisurely hour checking out the Inverts on my local patch that afternoon.
As I headed out I received a text informing me a pretty rare dragonfly had been seen at one of my regular Doorstep haunts down at Grimley..intrigued, I drove straight past my patch pull in , and arrived at Grimley less than 20 minutes later.

The site was empty of folks, but in the warm afternoon sun, chuffing with Invertebrates, especially the buzzy bitey kind...after 10 minutes I returned to the car to apply extra strength repellent or risk being eaten alive.
I was soon snapping Common Blue, Blue-tailed and White-legged damselflies, and was fairly certain there were Four Spotted Chasers chasing about, but they were lively !

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Common Blue Damselfly

 What I had come to see though was Red of Body, and wing vein, and something red landed on the causeway a few feet ahead. Raising my bins the red lines in the wing were evident..this was indeed looking like Red-veined Darter !!

I eventually managed some shots, which I hoped were good enough for me to study at home, as I was far from familiar with this species. Having gotten what I could, I had a crack at the Quad Spots.

Four Spotted Chaser

Thankfully the pics came out, helping me to study this unfamiliar species. A probable influx of immigrants finding their way to this site for the first time since 2006..many thanks to Brian Stretch for finding them. Brilliant.
Red-veined Darter

2 comments:

  1. I am envious Mark! Super Odonata and super images!

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  2. Thanks Pam, if the weather ever picks up, the new workings is well worth a trip..but (ironically) you really need to take some insect repellent !!

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