Tuesday 4 July 2017

Thursley Dragons





Tuesday was a trip out to Thursley Common to top up the Dragonfly list for the year. It was hot and sunny as we left the south coast but by the time we got to Thursley it had clouded over and there was a cool breeze getting up.

We did make a quick stop over on the way to try and get Dave a Sussex Common Clubtail but we could not find any. Having first seen them just two weeks ago this suggests that the mating period when they are to be found by the river is only a couple of weeks long.

Thursley may have been cooler than we had expected but there were still a lot of Dragons and Damsels to be seen. In particular the wooden boardwalk had warmed up early and a lot of the Dragonflies were using it as a place to  bask and absorb the heat.

The pond was a bit of a disappointment though, with nothing flying around the edges. So no sign of the Downy and Brilliant Emeralds that we had been hoping to see.

First target was the Black Darter. There were a lot of newly emerged specimens to be found in the grass and reeds and a few more mature examples out on the board walk.


Black Darter - freshly emerged male



Black Darter


Black Darter


Black-tailed Skimmer


Black-tailed Skimmer


Common Blue Damselfly


Emerald Damselfly


Emerald Damselfly


Probably an immature Emerald Damselfly


Rather tatty Emperor


Female Emperor oviposting


Keeled Skimmer


Keeled Skimmer


Small Red Damselfly


And a couple of Butterflies. Nice to find a Painted Lady in good condition.



Painted Lady


Painted Lady


Small Tortoiseshell 




2 comments:

  1. Nice to see your blog still going strong, I used your archives to try and locate new butterflies. I started my own blog this year perhaps you might like to check it out. blhphotoblog.wordpress.com any comments and tips would be very welcome. Regards Brian Hicks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Brian

    Checked your blog, it looks good and you will enjoy looking back over it in years to come. I did skip the cars - not really my scene but the wildlife was very good and I picked up a few new sites to visit. My only suggestion for improvement, you need a timeline. I found it difficult to navigate to the latest entries from the homepage. Get a few more blogs on there and it will be almost impossible.

    Tried to post this on your blog but Wordpress kept asking me to log in and I don't know how.

    Stick with it.
    Martin

    ReplyDelete