Saturday July 23

A late start for a rather different sort of day. It was hot and sunny, ideal for the Warwickshire Dragonfly Group meeting I had decided to join on it's visit to Middle Spernal Pools, and later to Morton Bagot.

About 18 people turned up, and Mike and I were initially given the task of waiting for a lady who was a little late so that she didn't get lost. As a result we found we were lagging behind at Middle Spernal, but still saw everything that the rest of the group saw. In fact we may have done slightly better than our companions as we spotted a Hobby, two Purple Hairstreaks, and two Banded Demoiselles which were not on the list which had been compiled by group leader, Peter Reeve.

Ruddy Darter

Shaded Broad-bar

Middle Spernal's Pools are larger than those at Morton Bagot, and the reed-bed is much more extensive, and stuffed full of Reed Warblers. Surprisingly, the Hobby was a patch year-tick for Mike. On the way back we flushed a silent pipit which appeared to be a Meadow Pipit, although Mike said they are not normally present here in summer.

So on to Morton Bagot. The party condensed into four cars, and rather to my surprise opted to park in the long grass by the beehives by pre-arrangement with the Heart of England Forest representatives. I therefore led them down to the main pool where we flushed three Green Sandpipers and then started searching for dragonflies.

Ruddy Darter

At the far end of the pool I located some damselflies with red eyes. Several problems then presented themselves. I had stupidly left my scope in the boot of Mike's car by the beehives, and the damselflies  were landing on the Water-milfoil (I was told by Mike what it was) some distance from the bank. Also, our expert, Peter, had decided to head for the top pond, and was therefore a dot on the horizon. This is one long excuse for the following photographs, which were the best I could manage.

Small Red-eyed Damselflies

When Peter did finally join us, he agreed that we were looking at Small Red-eyed Damselflies and not Red-eyed Damselflies. Small Red-eyed are a recent colonist to the UK, but were found here, in this exact spot, a couple of years ago. Last year the pool almost dried out, and I didn't see any.

Intriguingly, another group member, Mick, took shots of an obvious Small Red-eyed Damselfly, and also what looked from the image in the back of his camera, like a Red-eyed Damselfly. Kay Reeves was somewhat sceptical of his report as it is a bit late in the season for them, and they typically prefer ponds with lily pads. However, it will be interesting to see what they say if they get a chance to look at Mick's pictures.

I jogged/staggered back to the car to get the scope and tripod largely because Mike and I had gone to the flash where we discovered there were waders on the far edge of the most distant flash. They turned out to be Green Sandpipers. It at least gave us the chance to scope the Small Red-eyed Damselflies.

On our way back, Mike and I stopped at the Dragonfly Ponds, which had been ignored by the group, hoping to see or hear the Grasshopper Warblers. There was no sign of any, but we did rediscover the adult male Whinchat.

Whinchat

This bird almost totally lacks orange on its upper breast because of feather wear, and so I think it is likely to be the bird Dave and I saw a fortnight ago, as that also had a very pale breast.

Finally, a look at the pools produced my first Southern Hawker of the year. It showed no sign of landing but I managed to get a flight shot.

A heavily cropped image of the Southern Hawker

I very much enjoyed the day, and learnt amongst other things that no dragonfly watcher likes to use English names for any of the dragonflies. So I was constantly having to translate Lestes sponsa, Aeshna grandis, and various other latin names in my head to work out what everyone was talking about.