Overshot

There were so many Downy Emeralds and Four-spotted Chasers at Lower Moor and Sandpool today that I hardly knew where to point the camera. 

The Chasers were doing their mass emergence thing among the reeds at the corner of Mallard Lake, and then decamping into the orchard and the birch woods on either side of Dragonfly Alley. There they would settle on suitable perches, singly or in small groups – until disturbed, when they would rise up in a fluttery cloud, fly about for a few seconds, and then go and perch somewhere else. This tendency to congregate is the same behaviour that sees Four-spotted Chasers roosting en masse in places like Ham Wall, and as far as I know, they’re the only British dragonfly that does it. They hang out peaceably together until they’re fully mature, at which point the congregation breaks up and the dragons disperse in search of sexual partners.

On the subject of which, this pair of Downy Emeralds were also hanging out in the marshy birch woodland by Dragonfly Alley, but were very much not interested in all the Four-spotted Chasers – or indeed, the other Downies – who were flying all around them. I must confess that I’m indebted to another Odonutter for the sighting: we were standing chatting among the trees when he suddenly said “Downies flying in cop!”, and tracked them with a pointing finger until they came to rest. Initially they landed on a scrubby tree, above head height, and were quite difficult to photograph, but the male wasn’t satisfied with the perch and after a few seconds they moved to this dead sapling. He was clearly more comfortable there, because they settled in for the duration – Downy Emerald copulation lasting up to ninety minutes – and we were happier too, because they were much better placed for photos. This is my excuse for the couple of hundred photos I took of the happy couple over the next quarter of an hour, from multiple different angles and using both long and macro lenses.

For the record, I also spent a while at the end of the afternoon watching a male Hairy Dragonfly weaving back and forth through the reeds at the edge of Mallard lake. Sadly I wasn’t able to get any photos, but the Hairy Dragonfly is something of a bête noir for me in terms of images so I had low expectations to begin with, and once I realised that the equation between the fading light and the dragon’s speed and cryptic colouring was not going to resolve in my favour, I gave up the attempt and simply stood and enjoyed his performance. More disappointingly, I didn’t manage to find a Broad-bodied Chaser today; and nor did I catch sight of the two fresh Norfolk Hawkers which my woodland acquaintance told me he’d accidentally put to flight from some reeds, a couple of minutes before I turned up. I have no reason to doubt the sighting though, because on my last visit I bumped into someone I know who lives locally, and he told me that Norfolk Hawkers are now becoming established at Lower Moor. So I foresee another trip down the Fosse to Wiltshire in the not-too-distant future.

R: L2, C9, D10.