The title kind of says it all really, after a short sleep due to a very late flight I popped over to Weldon to see if the Banded Demoiselles were responding to the good weather.
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| Variable Damselfly and Azure for comparison. |
A walk along the stream produced sightings of six altogether, five males and a female. Several Azure Damsels which were also my first of the year showed quite well and I took a photo of several. While checking one of these pictures I realised that one and probably two were actually Variable Damsels, an identification confirmed by people on the UK Dragonflies Facebook group. This is a very scarce species in the county, the only regular spot is in the Soke of Peterborough. One of my ambitions for this year was to try and find this species so I was very happy to find it. A walk around the neighbouring pond produced many Large Red Damsels, I must have seen close to fifty here and at the A43 pond.
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| Banded Demoiselles |
Birds were in short supply though I saw a Kingfisher at the first pond while the second had a few Tufted Ducks.
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| Large Red and Holly Blue. |
On the way home at stopped off at the old patch where I hoped to find skippers and hairstreaks but didn't. Happily it was not a total failure as three Holly Blues were my first of the year. Other butterflies were a few Orange-tips, two Brimstones, several whites and a Speckled Wood near the steelworks but in truth the day belonged to the damsels.
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| Orange-tip. |
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