Freshly Scarce

I worked my local Odonata beat today, starting at Cleeve Prior Community Orchard, then dropping down to the Avon at Cleeve Prior Mill, before swinging round to the Heart of England Forest section of the river near Barton.

My field notes for the Community Orchard (jotted down in the Encounter Nature app I've come to find indispensable), remind me that I saw 2 clashing male Four Spotted Chasers over Orchard pond, and a female Chaser of some kind ovipositing among iris stems on the far side of the pond, though I couldn't see her clearly enough through the thick vegetation for definite identification. There were a handful of Azure Damselflies among grass and wild flowers by Long Deep Pond, and two male Common Blue and around twenty White-legged Damselflies among the trees in the orchard area. 

On my way back towards the car I stopped again at the Orchard Pond in the (unfulfilled) hope of a Hairy Dragonfly, but instead caught my first photos of the year of an immature Scarce Chaser who, after clashing briefly in mid-air with one of the Four-spots, circled round and dropped gracefully onto the bank, just below and to the side of the spot where I was standing. You need to know at this point that this pond has very steep banks, and the access is difficult; there are only a couple of places where I think it's safe to stand, and both are a good eight feet above the level of the water, which is described on a nearby warning notice as being deep. So I had no room for manoeuvre - couldn't step down, couldn't step back - and just had to shoot from where I was, and hope for the best. I got the shots, but the images are... unusual.

Down at Cleeve Prior Mill the usual twenty or so Banded Demoiselles (and one lone female Beautiful, who might have to move elsewhere to find a partner) have now been joined by about the same number of White-legged Damselflies, but there were also two or three immature male Scarce Chasers working the clearing. They like to perch in the worst places - clumps of dead rosebay willowherb stems are a favourite - and most of my images were simply record shots, but here I was lucky to get a clear sightline on the Chaser's head and thorax, and as his abdomen was mostly obscured by intervening nettles, I simply cropped it out. My second photo shows the Beautiful Demoiselle, who by now is so used to me stalking her that she barely bothers complaining; you can see that her false wing spot is further along the fore edge of the wing than it would be in a female Banded Demoiselle, and at the back of her head the diagnostic pair of tiny tubercles are clearly visible.

By this time I'd already taken too many photos, but I pushed on to Barton anyway, before heading off to Stratford Garden Centre and a well-earned cup of coffee. At Barton the bankside vegetation is now heaving with Banded Demoiselles, which rise up in a cloud of fluttery blue and green wings every time you step into a gap in the nettles. Once again there was an immature Scarce Chaser on patrol, but again he was only perching among rubbish. You'd almost think they were doing it on purpose. And at the feeder stream there were a few more Banded and around a dozen Beautiful Demoiselles - making this an excellent place to go if you want to see the two species close together, so as to compare them.