Southern Hawler Dragonfly.

The beautiful and intricate markings of a male Southern Hawker dragonfly showed up well today as it hung on the Choisia bush in my front garden. This hanging pose is characteristic of this species, which makes identification easier than it might otherwise be.  The very similar Common Hawker and Migrant Hawker  both have more blue colouration and much thinner antehumeral stripes, (the two greeny/yellow stripes behind the head)  than the Southern Hawker, but do not adopt the hanging perching position.

                Southern Hawker.       Click to enlarge.                       Photo. John Elliott

Butterfly Aberation.

Occasionally aberant forms of common butterflies turn up, and I was lucky enough to see one on the Broncham Hill section of the Ridgeway at the weekend. I was very puzzled at first as it was unlike any of the  Dorset species normally seen, but its size and behaviour hinted that it might be some form of Small Copper, and so it turned out to be. Devoid of the normal coppery red colour, this is the rare aberant albino form, Lycaena phlaeas alba.  

Small Copper, albino form alba.                    Photo.  Jill Weller.

Migratory Birds

September is the month when many of the birds that have spent the summer with us start their migration south, mainly to Africa. Portland is an important take-off point, with daily records being being put online by Martin Cade, the warden of the Portland Bird Observatory, (portlandbirdobs.blogspot.co.uk). Inland funnels to Portland include the Hog Hill/Maiden Castle valley with reports in the last week of Redstart, Wheatear,  Winchat, Whitethroat, Spotted Flycatcher and Corn Bunting. 

Daily reports of Dorset birds, including many from the Martinstown area, may be seen at dorsetbirds.blogspot.co.uk

Sad news of my Cuckoo.

An email from BTO today bringing the sad news that Nussey the Cuckoo I sponsored this year is likely to be dead.

Nussey.   Photo. BTO

Unfortunately the challenging conditions have also impacted on Nussey who has already attempted two trips to Africa and retreated to Europe.  Abnormally low temperatures were received at the time of the last messages (16 August), having previously been fine. He was not migrating at that time, so the low temperatures were not due to high altitude, and the battery was also much lower than previously, further suggesting he was dead.
The droughts and exceptionally high temperatures in Europe appear to have proved difficult for our Cuckoos this year, however the five south of the Sahara are still regularly transmitting. Valentine, PJ, Carlton II and Tennysons' tags have all sent signals during September and the last signals received from Senan's tag were at the end of August and show him still in Burkina Faso.

Three others of the tagged Cuckoos have died in Spain this year, but the rest are now in Africa. I will have a look at their details and sponsor one of them.

I check occasionally to see where readers of this blog are coming from.  In the last month there have been 62 page views from the UK, which I feel is satisfactory, and 7 from France which could be accounted for by visitors from the valley. The surprise though is that there were apparently 154 pageviews from Russia and 148 from the Ukraine. Who would have thought there was so much interest in our valley wildlife in those countries? I fear the worst. 

New Damselfly.

Banded Demoiselle                           Photo John Elliott

This year is proving to be very good for Dragonflies and Damselflies in my wildlife garden. Two recent arrivals are a Common Darter and a Banded Demoiselle, the latter being a first record in the valley. It is supposed to prefer slowly flowing waters in contrast to the very similar Beautiful Demoiselle which likes fast flowing streams and occurs down the Weymouth Road. The obvious difference between the two is that the wing colouration of the Beautiful Demoiselle extends over the whole wing length wereas the Banded lives up to its name and has only a central pigmented band.

Also on the garden pond, a Common Darter which visited briefly.

Common Darter.    Click to enlarge.  Photo John Elliott

Also towards bottom left, a Helophilus Hover Fly, but which one in this very numerous Genus I don't know.

No news yet of my sponsored Cuckoo. It is one of four which have gone silent this year in Spain.