Enter the Dragon .. (Reprise)

It has been a quiet year to date for Odanata in the garden. On the 8th of July a male Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella) was noted resting on the Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) at the water-butt pond. It was only seen that once.

On the 1st of August, a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum) was holding territory using the back of the garden chair as a lookout post. This encounter transpired to be an all but brief affair too, with only a single day's activity observed, before it disappeared from the garden.

Throughout this heat-wave, both small ponds have required continous top-up  and much attention has been given to removal by hand, of the filamentous green alga which threatens to completely cover the surface of the ponds.

During the course of one such clearing, I was delighted to find a dragonfly nymph (Sympetrum cf striolatum), in the water-butt pond.

water-butt pond

Azure damselfy

Common Darter

Sympetrum cf striolatum nymph
5th Aug 2022

Enter the Dragon

Whilst the (new) garden list has been getting longer year on year since I first started recording in August 2016 my sightings of Odonata have remained few and far between.

It took nearly two years before I got my first record - a single azure damselfly (Coenagrion puella) on the 9th June 2018. Needless to say I was more than made up to break my duck! Then, by some natural coincidence I was to get my second record of this species exactly a year later on the 9th June 2019.

This sighting was swiftly followed by a new species record on 1st July 2019 - when a single blue-tailed damselfly (Ischnura elegans) went to roost in the long grass of the "wildflower patch".

As if this wasn't excitement enough, by the end of August I was over the moon to capture the image of a male common darter (Sympetrum striolatum) as it patrolled the back garden looking for a vantage point / territorial perch .. first stopping on the handle of a hand fork, that had been pushed into the ground in order to hold down the edge of some wildflower turf .. then alighting on the blueberry bush .. where it posed obligingly for some time.

Three weeks later a second common darter has appeared , this time a female, who spent time on the miniature apple tree, allowing me to get close enough for some (almost) frame-filling shots.