Alan's Wobbly Stones

 Yet another visit to Priors Hall this afternoon where I spent several hours looking for the Scarce Emerald that Mark Tyrrell photographed on Friday. Things move quickly on the local ode front and this individual is no longer regarded as the county's first having been gazumped by one at Pitsford Reservoir earlier in the week. Phil Rogers was already on site but neither he nor I could catch up with the elusive emerald.

Emerald Damselfly and Southern Migrant Hawker

Alan's Southern Migrant Hawker is still hanging around though it's beginning to look a little rougher than it did. On several occasions today a second individual encroached on it's territory but was driven off by the established one. It's still showing from the wobbly stone where Shozzer initially saw it and continues to pose for photographs. Those wobbly stones will probably go down in local ode lore, it's unlikely that I'll forget them! Other dragons frequenting the area included Emperor, Brown, Migrant and Southern Hawkers while both of the common darters were present. Pick of the damsels were the Emeralds which we had to go through in search of their rarer cousin, unusually all were males and many appeared to be quite mature. Butterflies included Common Blue and Brown Argus while the best birds were Water Rail and Kingfisher.

Common Blue and Buzzard

I checked the two ponds in the old quarry and was rewarded with great views of a perched Emperor. Teneral Common Darters are still emerging in good numbers and there were ten plus Small Red-eyed Damselflies on the larger pond. Although I didn't see the target species I still enjoyed a good afternoon and might have stayed longer if I didn't have a family meal booked in the George.

Emperor and Small Red-eyed Damselflies