Another New Dragonfly

A large, strongly flying dragonfly dropped into the garden this afternoon, a Southern Hawker.

                                        Southern Hawker Dragonfly    Click to enlarge.

    Commonly breeding in  woodland ponds, lakes and canals, it is often seen in gardens, perhaps due to their resemblance to woodland clearings. The larvae take two years to mature  and in their second year can take quite large prey, such as tadpoles and small fish. Is this perhaps what happened to my tadpoles this year, they never managed to get anywhere near full size before disappearing.       

                                                      

New Dragonfly

A new species for my wildlife garden appeared yesterday, a Common Darter. This increases the number of species seen this year on my very small pond, to three. The most numerous has been the Azure Damselfly, with Large Red Damselfly close behind. Hopefully the Common Darter is from last year's egg laying here, but there is a possibility that it may be part of an immigration from Europe which this species is known to undertake.

                                          Common Darter Dragonfly.   Click to enlarge.



The plant on which it is perched is Figwort. This does appear occasionally along the stream but I suspect most gardeners pull it up as a weed.  The flowers are small but attractive, and the leaves are the preferred food plant for six species of moths. Most moths are very fussy eaters and will only eat one species of plant, so the more that we can provide in our gardens the better.

My Cuckoo, which was leading the pack flying to African wintering grounds, and had reached Morroco but then turned back north, is still wandering around in the Bordeaux area. All the other tagged Cuckoos are well ahead now, some having reached Northern Africa. 

Weymouth Road walk.

The current road closure on Gould's Hill means that the Weymouth Road is traffic free and much safer to walk down than normally. A stroll down this afternoon revealed a much greater variety of wildlife than the stream displays in the village, where the "gardening" in the name of so-called flood prevention measures results in vigorous growth of the very poisonous Hemlock Water Dropwort and Fools Watercress. These crowd out more interesting plants, such as Purple Loosestrife, Comfrey, Hemlock (that's the one that did for Socrates, but it is not as poisonous as the Hemlock Water Dropwort mentioned above), Woody Nightshade, Oxeye Daisy and, sadly, Himalayan Balsam.

                                         Himalayan Balsam                                             Click to enlarge 

 This handsome but invasive plant should be eradicated as it shades out other species and leads to erosion of river banks, and hence silt build up and increased likelihood of flooding.

Nettles grow freely along the stream and are an important food plant for  some thirty moth species and four butterflies including the Small Tortoiseshell whose black and yellow larvae emerge from a silken web to feed on the nettles.

                                         Small Tortoiseshell larvae on nettle.      Click to enlarge.


My sponsored Cuckoo, Nussey, has mover even further north into France. Very odd behaviour! All the other tagged Cuckoos are flying strongly south into Africa.

Odonata and Cuckoos

I read somewhere recently that dragonfly and damselfly larvae like to use Water Soldier plants to live in and emerge from, so invested in three plants for my small garden pond a couple of weeks ago.It looks to be working!

                                 Damselfly larvae on Water Soldier Plants. Click to enlarge.  

Dragonfly larvae are rather ugly creatures that spend up to two years feeding at the bottom of ponds, and then in the summer months crawl up the leaves or stems of water plants where the outer skin spits open for a rather damp insect to emerge.  This will eventually expand and dry out for the beautiful adult insect to take flight. So far I have had several Large Red and numerous Azure damselflies. Not sure yet what the above larvae are but am waiting patiently with camera at the ready.

The Beautiful Demoiselle has appeared again in the stream down the Weymouth road

My newly adopted Cuckoo, Nussey, was the first of this years tagged Cuckoos to leave the country. How on earth does it know the way to Africa?  After spending time in France feeding up for the journey it flew south through Spain, crossing the Mediterranean into Morocco. It presumably intended doing a bit more feeding before crossing the Sahara, but seems to have decided that it would be better off in Spain and so has made the highly unusual move of  flying 780 miles back north and is now in northern Spain near the French border.

Rooks and Cuckoos.

he Martinstown Rook population seems to have been severely reduced in recent weeks. The eight nests in he Horse Chestnut tree outside my bedroom window which were such a hive of activity earlier in the year are now unused, as also are some others in the village.
The rooks were always the first to visit my bird table in the morning, taking their fill before the Jackdaws, next in the pecking order, arrived, but have not been seen for three weeks.. There has also been some anomalous behaviour in the Rooks' night roost as a large number  have, on occasions, gathered in Martinstown rather than in the woods near Bradford Peveral where they usually spend the night. It seems likely that there has been some culling, perhaps as a result of recent government changes in the permit system for shooting pest species.I can understand why Rooks, Carrion Crows and Wood Pigeons are on the list as pest species but Why, Oh Why, do Moorhens figure there?

I have sponsored one of this year's brood of Cuckoos. named Nussey. Born and reared by unwitting foster parents in the New Forest, it has been fitted with a transponder which will enable satellite tracking as it makes its way to the African rainforest where it will overwinter.
It is now in central France putting on  a bit of fat  to provide the energy for its long flight.

Weymouth Relief Road Walk.

A walk today down the bridleway alongside the Weymouth Relief Road  currently covered in Oxeye Daisy and Kidney Vetch ,and towards the bottom of the slope, a magnificent display of Bee Orchids.

 Weymouth Relief Road bridleway     Click to enlarge.

The first Bee Orchids to arrive here were two that were seen a couple of years ago and they have now increased in number to 198.

                                                                       Bee Orchid     Click to enlarge

 Among the Bee Orchids there was a single Pyramidal Orchid.  The rather cold, unseasonal weather meant that there were few butterflies in evidence,  two Small Blue and two Adonis Blue were seen, and one day flying moth, a Burnet Companion

Privet Hawk Moth.

                                            Privet Hawk Moth                    Photo. John Elliott

The first of the Hawk Moths to come to my UV light trap this year, the Privet Hawk Moth has
 a 10 cm. wing span, slightly more than that of a House Sparrow. It normally perches with the upper wings closed showing only the rather drab browny patches, but when preparing for flight it reveals a bright pattern of pink and black stripes on the underwing. Other species regularly caught at the moment include Hebrew Character, Treble Lines, White Ermine, Muslin Moth, Buff Tip, Dark Arches, Heart and Dart, and, a first for Martinstown, a Streamer.