Thursday 27 June 2019

Hot!.....then really hot!

Model boat pond
Red-veined Darter - absolute minimum three probably another two
Banded Demoiselle - SE corner of pond briefly.  Malcolm's pics - thanks!



The following pictures from Janice cover all the dragonflies, that you could expect to see around the main pond at the moment.





South wall roundhead 16:30 - 17:30 (MD)
By this time the warm easterly breeze had strengthened.
Insects were flying in off the sea from the west at a rate of one every 5 seconds between lighthouse and wooden jetty. Mainly painted lady. A ten minute check between waterfall and lighthous resulted in 118 Painted lady plus3 Red Admiral all moving steadily inland.
By 17:30 they were still coming in but the rate had reduced slightly to one every 10 seconds.

But it wasn't just butterflies, there was also a steady influx of dragonflies.
Red-veined darter - absolute minimum of 10 (this assumes that the only one that left the area
was the one male seen to - unlikely). There were at least 4 adult male, possibly a teneral male and 6 female.








Large dragonfly - one came in overhead, no features or colour discerned (not blue or red). Based on context of sightings and definite sightings from Freshfield earlier today. This is likely to have been a Vagrant Emperor.

Rock pipit - this bird dropped down to area of original nest site with this bill full of what looks like Painted lady bodies.



Wednesday

Three Red-veined Darter Middleton

Drake Common Scoter still off Heysham Head