Teneral

"The afternoon dragonfly patrol has started," said R as I walked back into the garden. I'd been up at Tilly's field, searching without success for Wool Carders and grasshoppers, and was a bit annoyed to have missed this particular milestone in the invertebrate year. R wasn't able to confirm if it was a Southern Hawker doing the patrolling, but it usually is, so I grabbed the big camera and went looking for some at the most likely site in the village.

Last year our own little wildlife pond produced a couple of dozen Southern Hawkers, but they didn't start emerging until mid-July, by which time our neighbours' much bigger pond, a couple of hundred yards up the lane, had produced several score, and the emergences there had slowed to a trickle. I still have no idea why there was this time discrepancy between the two ponds - if anything, I'd have expected our larvae to leave first, because in a small pond the water is shallower and warmer - but I thought the pattern might repeat itself, so I headed off to S and J's orchard, and found four teneral Southern Hawkers clinging to emergent vegetation. Three of the four had sustained some kind of damage - one had creased all four of her wing tips, another had a slightly twisted abdomen, and the third was missing half of one front leg - but none of their injuries were severe, and happily this last female looks perfect.

I'm always happy to see a Southern Hawker - which this year is the nineteenth species on my Odonata list - but I can't help feeling that the season is accelerating past me, and if I so much as blink it'll zoom off over the horizon and disappear. I think that might be an age thing.

Speaking of disappearing over the horizon, tomorrow morning I'll be heading off on a three-day road trip, while R, who turns out not to have an unlimited tolerance of nature reserves, stays at home and parties. I'll try to keep up my blog while I'm away, but if that proves impossible I'll tell you all about it when I get back.