Insect Twitching

Well, technically the first but the second not so much, maybe.

He's burbling already...


Right, so as you may be aware, I went swanning off after Red-veined Darters at Clennon recently. A day later, I - having previously failed to find White-letter Hairstreak at my usual site - cracked and went down to Plimoth to look at the ones that have been showing so wonderfully in Central Park.

A hit and a miss - oops, spoiler alert? - but what can you do..


So, Clennon had blazing sunshine and more dragonflies than you can wave a camera at. While the male Scarce Chaser was eventually proved to be present - he'd moved up to the top one - his chosen perches were all out of shot. Not out of shot were shedloads of other blue [and not so blue] odonates, with Red-veins being particularly showy - at least the males.

EDIT:
This post is now corrected with proper ID of a very mature female Scarce Chaser, which I was sure was BT Skimmer [not least due to lack of black in wings, and very olive thorax, plus dinky neck], but my companion in dragonfly hunting that day asked the Might DS about. Said Smallshire -who has forgotten more about odonates than i know, let's be fair here - said it was Scarce and, looking with fresher eyes at the pics I will put my hand up and say the boy dun screwed up again. Oh well, eh?

Photo attack!

Red-veined Darter

Note the two-tone eyes - red over blue - yellow pterostigma with black borders, single stripe on thorax side, yellow lines on black legs, black line around frons ['face'], strong redness, oh yes, and red veins in the wings! :D

Heh heh heh.

Other spp. present;

Emperor

Female ovipositing

Scarce Chaser

[over-mature female]*

Black-tailed Skimmer

male

Broad-bodied Chaser

male

Broad-bodied Chaser

female

Blue-tailed Damselfly

female

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

male

Another one

Comma

Red Admiral

Wasp mimic hoverfly sp.

Reed Warbler

Grey Heron

Song Thrush

sunbathing

Stars of the Show

Wow, just wow.

Less said about the WLH dip the next day the better, probably, though Central Park is wonderful;

Yes, this is Plimoth

There's so much of it, too.

WLH Elm

I know and appreciate pollarding - especially to save Elms from nasty beetles - but this seems excessive. You'd normally only be this vigorous if you were felling it..???

Smaller Elms

Ooh, not a Harlequin

We'd better have at least one butterfly - a few were around, including another Painted Lady - but only one posed;

Red Admiral

Finally, a little sky.

Yes, I cut the skyline out

Still to come, further back in time, as we see my prior WLH failure, which was more of a success. And yes, at some point lots of insects, mostly very common moffs.
Also maybe more Clennon shots, as I have lots of dragons, oh dear.



Be Seeing You...

[[*Yes, that's the one.]]