This spring has been different. For one thing, it’s been a lot colder than normal – the coldest for 50 years, I think it is now said – which has delayed nature all round. The emergence of long-awaited damselflies after what seemed like an interminable winter was certainly late. Damselflies are the first Odonata to appear but shortly after, a few dragonflies, the big boys, do begin appearing. One of those is the Hairy Dragonfly [BDS name] or Hairy Hawker [preferred by Dijkstra/Lewington … and myself, for that matter], Brachytron pratense. It’s a so-called mosaic hawker, those with a dark abdomen with inlaid coloured spots/markings. If you see a mosaic hawker zooming about in May, in the UK that is, it’s almost guaranteed to be a Hairy. They don’t settle particularly often so they are a tricky species to snap.

I know my fascination with Odonata began only about four years ago, but I went for three of those years with just a single Hairy Hawker spotting, complete with a crappy photo of it. My subject was an ovipositing female and it was definitely a grab shot but I really should have been able to do better; it’s not as though they bounce up and down, like some species, while they oviposit, darn it! Just for a laugh, here’s that picture. Lose 10 points JC.

Though the weather this spring has been absolute pants, we will all have noticed, with much relief I suspect, that we are currently enjoying a very welcomed spell of settled weather with a good amount of sun. We are still in the grip of largely easterly/north-easterly winds that have a distinct chill to them but it is very pleasant and one heck of a lot better than anything hitherto. I’m quite certain that our wildlife will have been breathing collective sighs of relief.

First of all, on one of our earlier sunny days when we went exploring Roxton, We spotted two Hairy Hawkers and Carol managed to snag a grab shot of one settled in a rather inaccessible position. It, too was a female and, though awkwardly positioned, was a hell of a lot better than my historic, blurred ovipositing female.

A second encounter came last Sunday, three days ago, while we were exploring Harrold-Odell Country Park for the first time. Here, yet another female Hairy Hawker settled in a tree beside us to devour a hapless teneral damselfly. She was not obscured, at least from the best angle, and we now had a very good picture of a female Hairy.

Our third encounter happened today when we risked life, limb and car by visiting the Blue Lagoon in Bletchley. That might sound like a romantic name but the reality is quite different. It may not be quite as bad as I make out but the Blue Lagoon’s surroundings are, shall we say, on the rough side of civilized. It’s a decent enough habitat but is on the doorstep of a questionable housing estate and comes complete with a traveller encampment (I won’t dignify them by calling them Gypsies) at its southern end, very near the secluded car park. It does not engender a feeling of calm and security.

Shortly after we bravely parked in said secluded car park, we were stalking a couple of Four-spotted Chasers (Libellula quadrimaculata) flying and perching in a sunny inlet on the first lake. Yet another Hairy Hawker flew in, sniffed around the reeds as they do, then flew back out. We amused ourselves with the Four-spotted Chasers, which were our first of this season.

We moved a few yards further round the lakeside to another access point. I’d peered at the reeds at the edge of the lake itself and seen nothing when Carol announced that another Four-spotted Chaser was settled in an accessible position. I grabbed another shot – you can never have too many Four-spotted Chaser pictures. Then to my astonishment, we spotted a Hairy Hawker perched on a sapling a foot or so above the ground. Apart from needing to avoid a few blades of intervening grass, it couldn’t really have been any better. It sat for some time while I snapped away. I could see this one was my first ever male, so we now had a matching pair for the collection. Excellent!

We’re usually in France for June but this year I’m “stuck” here waiting for a cataract operation. Still, it gives me the chance to seek out UK species that I usually miss due to my absence. It’s not entirely absence that makes the Hairy Hawkers difficult, though, ‘cos I’ve seen other respected dragonfly enthusiasts say they’ve been waiting years for a decently settled Hairy. So, I consider myself very fortunate this hairy spring.

Maybe I’ll have to stay here more often? Nah!

This ridiculous spring is messing up all manner of wildlife-related issues. Many bird species time their breeding to take advantage of an expected bonanza of flying insects. When those insects are not present in sufficient numbers, nestlings are prone to perish ‘cos the adults cannot feed them successfully. I can just imagine the effect on migrants flying in from Africa, starving after the journey, and wondering where the hell the missing flying insects are. With my particular interests, I feel the lateness of the spring most accutely when it comes to dragonflies and their emergence/appearance, and with the dearth of butterflies.

Local organisations devise calendars of activities for the coming year well in advance, so they can get them into print and publicized, based on expected norms. Today we attended one from our own Bedfordshire Natural History Society, a walk around Pegsdon Hills in search of orchids, particularly one new to us, the Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera). I’m no botanist but it seems that orchids like chalk soils and Pegsdon Hills lies at the extreme eastern end of the Chilterns. We met at 10:30 AM. On this amazing 1st June, most of the 19 attendees appeared to be wrapped up for winter. As the cool morning air chilled me through my shirt-over-t-shirt combination, I began to wish I was, too.

Our leader was on home turf and knew where our main target species were. He did, however, warn us that several species we would have expected to admire would not be seen yet because of the lateness of the season. Since orchids not yet in flower are very easy to trample underfoot, he asked us to be wary about where we trod. In the curiously named section known as Hoo Bit, there were several Fly Orchids in bloom and also some White Helleborines (Cephalanthera damasonium) which were just beginning to show flower. Others, though, particularly those in shadier locations, were showing flower spikes but no actual flowers as yet. Another orchid species in this chalk grassland reserve was the Common Twayblade (Listera ovata), most of which were not in flower yet either.

I may not be a botanist but I do find orchids interesting, so even I had a go at snapping them. After all, there weren’t any flying insects for me to concentrate my efforts on. Naturally, though, our floral specialist grabbed better shots than I and here’s Carol’s collection of the three orchids of the day, including a Common Twayblade against all the odds. Personally, I think I’d rename the Fly Orchid as the Jamiroquai Orchid; the top of the flower looks just like the strange headgear favoured by Jay Kay. 🙂

We did see a few butterflies but they were not at all keen on flying. The first was a Dingy Skipper which had chosen to hitch a ride on the front of one our group’s trousers. I also noticed two or three Small Heaths which seem to have appeared in the last few days.  Our leader had clearly done this kind of thing before and even he expressed surprise about the almost complete lack of butterflies, saying that in a normal year he’d “be beating them off with a stick”.

This is everything but a normal year.

I’ve maintained a “to be visited” list of potential dragonfly haunts for some time. One of those is Harrold-Odell Country Park but, as reported in A Break from Paper Hanging, our recent spell of settled weather coincided with a bank holiday so I avoided it in favour of quieter haunts. However, with further Odo-friendly weather today, albeit with a wind that still had a chill to it, I just couldn’t resist my inaugural visit, even though this would mean braving Joe Public, Joe Public’s uncontrolled rugrats (controlling rugrats is clearly very unfashionable in the UK these days) and Joe Public’s even less controlled dogs (“down Rover, don’t jump up people” – how many times have they said that?).

The park lies in the north of Bedfordshire between two villages called Harrold and Odell. Ah ha! It took us about 45 minutes to get there, via Tesco at Kingston in Milton Keynes in search of an HDMI cable with a bendy head, which we found. An overflow car park was open and, Just driving into at, we were scaring up clouds of teneral damselflies which had to go unidentified but were either Azure Damselflies (Coenagrion puella) and/or Common Blue Damselflies (Enallagma cyathigerum). We identified both, later. Even the overflow car park was approaching full and there were nearly as many teneral Homo sapiens as there were teneral Enallagma cyathigerum. I must say, though, that the place proved to be a pleasant surprise, very nicely done and essentially free, though there was a suggested £1 donation for parking which I’m more than happy to pay for such a facility. Donations are a nice way to do it.

HOCP has a big lake, Grebe Lake, which we sat beside to eat a chorizo and tomato sandwich while we watched the constant flutter of rising tenerals again. You really couldn’t take a step here without scaring up someone; there were hundreds of them. Here’s what some of the lucky ones of these will turn into, a fully matured male Common Blue Damselfly. I really don’t have any idea of the strition rate for teneral damselflies – interesting thought.

After a brief lunch we headed into the “wildlife sanctuary”, a wooded wetland area, which was is also a blessed sanctuary from dogs. Excellent! We added loads of Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryz splendens) to our count and spent some time watching a suspected Hairy Dragonfly/Hairy Hawker (Brachytron pratense) zoom about waiting for a landing which, typically, never occurred. There was also a lone female Blue-tailed Damselfly.

Leaving the wildlife sanctuary, we struck out across a field of cow pats (avoided) to the Great Ouse which snakes borders the southern side of the park. Here we found a pair of Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) ovipositing though we didn’t see any others, somewhat curiously. The Ouse was clearly not navigable at this point, the middle being blocked in various places by clumps of reed and other emergent vegetation, much loved of dragonflies. There were a few sparse patches of lily pads near the river bank which were being occupied by several Red-eyed Damselflies (Erythromma najas), in their habitual manner.

With the day’s species count standing at a traditional seven – I have several sites in this vicinity with a count of seven – we began making our way back towards the overflowing car park. Oh well, just a quick extra look along the shore of Grebe Lake, then. 🙂 The lake itself looked relatively quiet but I did spot a damselfly exuvia on one of plants. Given the amount of tenerals going up throughout the afternoon there must have been lots more but they seem pretty difficult to spot. Where blue-type damselflies are concerned, they are also difficult to identify with any degree of certainly, apparently. This one is clearly that of a damselfly because it still has caudal lamellae attached – gill like structures at the end of the tail/abdomen.

The highlight happened following my exuvia interlude. Another Hairy Hawker shot past us. Shortly it returned flying more slowly and looking somehow different. It settled in a lakeside tree just above our heads. At first glance Carol wondered if it had formed a copulation wheel with another. However, once settled we could see that it looked different because it had one of the teneral damselflies dangling from its mouthparts. Its lunch main course is a female damselfly – you can see its never-to-be-used ovipositor in the photo (left) but I can’t tell the species. The angle caused a twig to blur some of the dining subject, unfortunately, but I wanted the shot for interest. It took just a few minutes to munch everything but the wings. I moved round to get a better – less macabre? – angle which is the much better photo (right). This was my first ever decent chance for a Hairy Dragonfly photo shoot so I was very content with the day’s work.

Harrold-Odell Country Park proved to be a less intimidating place that I feared. I will certainly return to see what species the later season brings.

What had we done to deserve this, a second sunny day on a bank holiday weekend? At least, if you don’t live in the west of the country, it was sunny – the forecast seemed to be cutting the country in two – though it was quite windy, too. I’d seen some interesting dragonfly records being entered from a section of the Great Ouse river, which was new to me, so I absconded from the paper hanging once again and we decided to investigate Roxton, just south of the nastily busy black cat roundabout on the A1.

As ever with new ground, I had little information about precise location but we found Roxton itself, a quiet, sleepy little village, navigated a few single-track roads – grass growing down the centre of the road is always fun – and found an apparently suitable parking spot. In fact, it appeared to be the only suitable parking spot and it was empty. Maybe we’d succeeded in avoiding swarms of people on this bank holiday again?

A handy-dandy footpath sign indicating the direction to “Roxton lock” gave us a clue and off we set. A couple of Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) flittered in some nettles beside the path. They were some way from the river but there are also a couple of seemingly private fishing lakes to the side which I imagine is where they emerged from. Continuing slowly, we soon added several Common Blue Dams (Enallagma cyathigerum), Blue-tailed Damselflies (Ischnura elegans) and a lonely (poorly positioned) Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens). The Blue-tails and Demoiselle were our first of this season so I was already a contented camper. Blue tails may be my favourite damselflies, largely because of the variety of colour forms of the females. This specimen is a very neat looking f. rufescens.

At a widening patch of sunlit nettles, Carol shouted the immortal phrase, “big boy!”. Well, what could she possibly have meant? It’s a good job the man walking his dog hadn’t been closer, sooner. 😀 The cause of her unseemly outburst was two dragons, which looked a bit mosaic to me as they flashed past at a rate of knots. Anything looking mosaic at this time of year had to be Hairy Dragonflies (Brachytron pratense). I’ve seen only one before in my short dragonfly career so excitement was high. The dragonflies split up so we followed suit. I chased one which promptly disappeared. Carol’s subject settled briefly but rather uncooperatively. However, she did manage a recognizable picture on her only-one-day-old, shiny new Canon EOS 60D, so well done to her.

Staying with the nettle bed, more fortune arrived in the shape of an orangey dragon. I was beside myself now. It landed right in front of me as I stood in the nettles with trousers that were clearly too thin to offer protection. Nonetheless, I wasn’t about to miss this golden opportunity. I’ve seen only one female Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva) before and she was half-way down France. This was my first UK example and she posed long enough for a clear plan shot, given a little getting stung and stretching by yours truly. Then she went further down our track where she posed for a good side view. Unbounded joy!

Finally, we hit the river and found the mother-lode of Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryx splendens), where two males posed for an interesting combination picture. One seems to have a slight blemish on its wing but it wasn’t having any trouble flying and displaying. A female posed shining brilliantly in the sun, too.

Further down the riverside path we hit another mother-lode, of Red-eyed Damsels (Erythromma najas) this time. “Why just here?”, I wondered, as I watched them in the ubiquitous stinging nettles, getting stung yet again all the while completely missing the fact that here were the only lily pads in this stretch of the river. Duh! We counted about ten, though I’m sure there were more. I sagged a decent male and female specimen – they really are delightful damselflies – and I couldn’t resist a distant shot of the classic Red-eye on lily pad pose.

Retracing our steps, the sunlit nettle bed appeared to be now almost deserted. It’s all about timing, isn’t it? Either that or my trampling it to get an angle on a truly scarce female Scarce Chaser upset everybody.

Final tally was seven species which is pretty good for me at a new location and certainly not bad for a river location. 🙂

With Odo weather being as scarce as rocking horse shit this year, I’ve been using the depressingly bad start to the new dragonfly season constructively by redecorating the lounge. However, something went wrong with the UK weather pattern: whereas any usual UK bank holiday would be plagued by rain, perhaps because our current pattern is to be cold and wet, on this particular bank holiday Sunday, the rain ceased and the sun was forecast to put in a guest appearance. I wasn’t about to spend such a precious day indoors hanging wallpaper.  Fortunately, my paste bucket ran dry with two short but complicated walls still left to cover. 😀

There’s a country park at a pair of villages a little north of me that I would like to investigate. Since the two villages are called Harrold and Odell, the country park is imaginatively named the Harrold-Odell Country Park. It apparently has a lake, a “wildlife sanctuary” with wetland, and a stretch of the Great Ouse river flowing beside it. Oh, and it has a website, which is how I know this. Unfortunately, I spotted that it also is advertised as being “a great place to walk dogs” and as having “things to keep the kids amused”. There be dragons – probably best avoided on an uncharacteristically sunny bank holiday weekend when every day on the lead up has been crap. Fearing for my sanity amongst barking hounds and screaming rugrats, I left it in the “to be visited” category and opted for a few small local nature-friendly places with no family attractions whatsoever. It was a bit like looking for a campsite, really.

I kicked off with Flitton Moor where a small herd of cows had poached the edge of a pond into a mud bath. I was ill-equipped, not thinking wellies would have been necessary. Nothing was moving at first but, from the safety of the short boardwalk, I did eventually spot a distant damselfly rise and fly up and away on what I imagine was its maiden flight. Then a tell-tale flash of larger wings glinted in the grass just a little closer. My trainers braved the less muddy clods of mud and I eventually found a very teneral female Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa). My first true dragonfly of the new UK season. There was no way to get rid of all the obstructing grass but at least I got some sort of photographic evidence before she, too, disappeared in the same direction as had the damselfly.

The pond now appeared to be completely still so I tried the small stream, which looked deserted at first but where I was pleased eventually to find 6 Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and 6 Azure Damselflies (Coenagrion puella), two of whom were in tandem. Way to go! Here, I found a colourful combination of males of the two species sitting close together. Mostly they were disturbing each other, though.

Next to Duck End NR where our (Bedfordshire’s) first Large Red Damselflies are often recorded (1st May this year). I’ve only been there at the start of the season so seen only Large Reds there; I was hoping to add a species or two. I lost count of the Large Reds but it was well over 30; I figured it to be around 36 so the population is very healthy. I did see 6 Azure Damselflies, too, but nothing else.

Finally, with the clock passing 3:00 PM, I returned to my real home patch of Sandhouse Lane NR. Oddly, I’d forgotten its star attraction but I was reminded of it in no uncertain terms when, just a few yards in from the entrance, a fresh Downy Emerald (Cordulia aenea) landed in the trees beside me. It was too high to get a very good shot – not enough DoF – but here’s a recognizable one for the record. We’re lucky to have this outpost of Downy Ems and it’s great to see them. Regrettably, the suspected breeding pond is in a private fishing ground complete with security guard so the little darlings aren’t the easiest to observe – they have to fly out and over a fence/hedge or two. I spotted and/or disturbed four others but they present photo opportunities – not after I disturbed them, anyway. Other culprits here were 15 Large Red Damselflies, 6 Azure Damselflies (all looking quite teneral with pale thoraxes), a lonely very pale/teneral Common Blue and a Broad-bodied Chaser which promptly disappeared before I could get near it. The latter was new to me for Sandhouse.

I’ve been trying my macro lens mounted on my old 10Mp Canon EOS 40D body, still a very good camera, whilst using my 300mm lens on the 18Mp Canon EOS 7D, my theory being that macro shots rarely require cropping and the 10Mp resolution is perfectly fine. If only my camera rucksack would take both bodies mounted at the same time.  Here’s a Large Red taken on the 40D/Sigma 150 macro combination.

All in all, a very good break from paper-hanging.

We landed back in the UK from Spain on Saturday to our traditional welcome of varying forces of rain and wind with temperatures staggering up to the dizzying heights of 12°C. Yuk! Bloody marvelous! Mind you, our trip down to Alicante airport to leave Spain was mostly covered by threatening clouds, though it was considerably warmer. First, we visited Singapore and Cambodia in late February and hoped to return to the beginnings of spring. Failed! Now we’ve been to Spain in late April hoping to return the beginnings of spring and apparently failed again.

Anyway, before Sunday’s rain began, I went to check my favourite local patch, Sandhouse Lane NR, and, after a worryingly quiet start, we spotted about 6 Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula), lurking about the main Odo pond. In these temperatures, they were trying not to be very active but they were also tricky little devils to pin down with pixels. We’re back to my favourite “one pair of eyes is not enough” syndrome. Keeping your eyes on your quarry whilst moving ones feet and monopod-mounted camera on a bramble-covered 45 grassy slope is decidedly tricky. Nonetheless, I managed it on a couple of occasions, at least well enough to capture a sample shot of both male and female.

Incidentally, whereas in early spring last year the main pond at Sandhouse Lane was as low as I’ve ever seen it, i.e. completely empty, this year is quite the opposite situation; it is now as full as I’ve ever seen it, a noticeably wider body of water. If the weather will perk up, it should be a nice little habitat again.

We continued into the industrial wasteland of the adjoining old tarmac plant (this was in use while the original section of the M1 motorway was being constructed) where there are several depressions that tend to fill with rain and provide more habitat. Though I was surprised at how little water there was here, we did find some with water and spotted another few Large Reds.

Whilst in Spain, I had received email notification that Bedfordshire’s first Large Red Damselflies this year had been spotted on 1st May. The individuals that we found, 18 in all including a few around neighbouring Jones Pit on a permissive path [clever of them to stick to the permissive path :D], displayed mixed colour maturity, some looking pale and fresh whilst others, like those above, were fully coloured.

Our Spanish hosts, who had returned to England visiting family, told us that England should be in for a good summer “because the crows were nesting high in the trees”. I do hope they are right but, with the current situation, I must confess to misgivings.