Dragonflies - Silver Lake, Dorset

We made two visits to this site over the weekend to look for dragonflies. Friday's visit was less successful because it became overcast and cooler such that the dragonfly activity was meagre. We observed the briefest fly-by of a male Broad Scarlet (Crocothemis erythraea) but failed to relocate it.

an overcast Silver Lake on Friday

Beewolf (Philanthus triangulum)

Pyramidal Orchid
(Anacamptis pyramidalis)

Grass Vetchling
(Lathyrus nissolia)

teneral fem. Black-tailed Skimmer 
(Orthetrum cancellatum)

Our visit today in full sunshine, yielded much better results with both Broad Scarlet and Lesser Emperor (Anax parthenope) showing well.

Broad Scarlet

Lesser Emperor

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperitor)
fem. ovipositing

Four-spotted Chaser
(Libellula quadrimaculata)

Black-tailed Skimmer

Garden listing incl. Odonata

Odonata sightings have continued throughout this last period, with both Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum), and Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans) making one day only appearances on the 18th and 19th of July, respectively.

Common Darter

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Also, on the 18^th Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) made it on to the garden list when I observed a single male flying over the wildflower lawn. The visit was short-lived, and the dragonfly has not reappeared again since then.

On the 21^st of July when carefully cleaning green algae from New Pond provided an opportunity to observe both damselfly nymphs and a dragonfly nymph cast.

Damselfly nymph

Dragonfly nymph exuvia

Other recent and interesting additions to the garden list have included two stonking flies. The Banded General (Stratiomys potamida) on the 26^th of June, and Dark Giant Horsefly (Tabanus sudeticus) on the 13^th of July.

Banded General

Dark Giant Horsefly

Addendum

In December 2025 the iRecord submission for Dark Giant Horsefly (Tabanus sudeticus) was verified by Martin Harvey and the record was aggregated.

Martin's comment as follows: "Redetermined from species Tabanus sudeticus (Dark Giant Horsefly) to species aggregate Tabanus bovinus/sudeticus agg. This is probably sudeticus, but it does seem rather pale and at this location I don't think we can completely rule out bovinus."