Thursday 8 May 2014

Another Hairy exuvia and some 4-Spots!

As there was a brief fine spell yesterday afternoon I decided to visit Swillbrook myself. I was shown the location by the original recorder - and within minutes I'd found my first ever Wiltshire Hairy Dragonfly exuvia! So at least 2 now have successfully completed their life-cycle at this spot. It too had used the sword like leaf of a Yellow Flag plant to emerge on.
As well as previously recorded Large Red, Azure, Blue-tailed, Common Blue and Red-eyed Damselflies in various stages of development, there were also several Four-spotted Chasers; from larvae to pre-flight emergents. Another new one for the year!
I had just been given an iPhone 4s from my daughter [she'd just upgraded to the 5c] and thought I'd try out the camera on it. Not a bad result I think you'll agree! Finally, we went across to the Southern end of Mallard Lake where, after some searching, we found a Downy Emerald exuvia. So nice to know they are still using both ends of this lake.

2 comments:

  1. The long awaited season has arrived and some great photos here Steve.Let us hope the floods of the winter have not effected df numbers too much.

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  2. Yes, although with mixed weather now. Usually flooding just moves the emerging populations around a little and larger volumes of water that then take longer to warm up result in later emergences - but I do generalize of course. There will probably have been some adverse effects.

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