Damsel Dipping in Finedon

A post on the Northants Dragonfly Group Facebook page from the county recorder revealing that the Willow Emeralds had emerged at their only Northants site, Finedon Pocket Park prompted a little twitch. Two friends and I set off once I'd finished work hoping to connect with this recent arrival in the county. Blue skies and sunshine added to our sense of optimism even if actual events did not follow the script.

Female Brown Hawker

As it was our first visit to the site we walked rather slowly towards where we hoped the pond would be. On the way we noted a few butterflies with Speckled Woods in the shadier areas and Large and Small White, Common Blue and a couple of Gatekeepers in the sunnier parts. Several dragonflies were found in the more open areas, Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters giving us a taste of the coming Autumn.

Migrant Hawkers doing their bit for the species.

We found a pond with some muddy footprints around the edge so figured this was the likely spot and so had a very thorough look around. Lots of Common Darters and some Ruddies were the most numerous species and there were a few Migrants too. A female Brown Hawker posed nicely as she moved around the pond egg laying. A Southern Hawker female was moving around the pond too but sadly did not pose anywhere where I could get a piccy. Happily a pair of Migrants were more obliging even landing next to me at one point.

Common Hawker.

An emerald was found after a while but sadly from a twitchy point of view turned out to be an Emerald and not our target species. A single Common Blue also showed while two mating Blue -tailed in the short willows growing out of the water briefly raised hopes until a view through the bins dashed all hopes.

Emerald, good but not quite what we were looking for.

Having given the site a good hour and a half we had to leave, a little disappointed perhaps, but with a view to return. On getting home a quick peak on the net revealed that the county recorder had had much better luck than us as he saw yet more examples of Willows on his visit today and that means that another visit will definitely be in the offing.

Blue-taileds briefly raising our hopes until reality intruded.