Today will live in my head as Chaser Day.
This morning I stood for about twenty minutes by the village pond, watching the senior Four-spotted Chaser there taking his life in his wings by repeatedly challenging the resident male Emperor. Not only was this quite alarming, but it made it hard for me to get either of them on camera, because the Chaser was spending much of his time perching in an out-of-the way position, but then leaping out at the Emperor every time he tried to land, and initiating another swirling mid-air clash. So after a while I decided to try my luck at two other local sites I haven’t reported before.
I started at the weir at Offenham, where you can walk down what I assume is a boat access slipway, right to the water’s edge. There I found numerous Scarce Chasers and Banded Demoiselles, as well as Azure and White-legged Damselflies. The light was pretty extreme down there, but I think that actually works in today’s second photo, of one of the male Scarce Chasers against a dark background of trees. As I was walking back to the lay-by opposite the Fish & Anchor where I’d left the car, several people paddled past me in inflatable canoes, and I suddenly realised that I really, really want a little boat. Not a canoe, because the point would be to be able to shoot from water level and I couldn’t handle an oar and a large camera at the same time, but a nice little inflatable with an outboard motor. I have no expectation of actually being able to make this happen, you should understand, but everyone needs a dream, and right now that’s mine.
From the weir I drove up Offenham Bank and stopped half-way, at the entrance to the Birmingham Anglers’ site known as Stubbs Pool. Had I known then what I know now, which is that it’s nearly a mile from the road to the pool, down (and more pertinently, back up) quite a steep slope, but that the track is eminently driveable, I’d have taken the car down and parked on the grass at the bottom – but you live and learn. Stubbs Pool is actually a small lake rather than the large pond I’d been expecting, filling an area of ground between the river and the base of the cliff that gives Cleeve Prior half of its name. Both pool and river bank have fishing pegs, and though some of the ones around the pool are derelict, others are well maintained, and all the numbered ones at the river look brand new. So I’d guess that this is a well-used angling site at weekends in the season – though today there wasn’t another person anywhere in sight.
However, while there were no other humans, I’ve never seen so many Scarce Chasers in one place as there were at this site this afternoon – between the river bank and the pool there must have been at least thirty. I’ve always understood this to be a riverine species, but having once been as scarce and localised as its name suggests, it’s now expanding its range, and apparently its site choices as well. In Dragonflies of Britain and Ireland, Smallshire & Swash give as the species’ breeding habitat: “Neutral or base-rich, muddy slow-flowing small rivers and dykes in flood plains and water meadows. It also sometimes breeds in mature ponds, gravel pits and canals. Sites are characterized by dense emergent and marginal vegetation.” The River Avon is shallow and sluggish along this stretch, and both it and Stubbs Pool are heavily vegetated, so it’s not surprising that the Scarce Chaser appears to be thriving here. Although virtually all the specimens I saw were male, I did see one pair flying in cop, and later spotted a lone female behind the pool, hunting among the trees and bushes at the base of the cliff.
As well as the Scarce Chasers, Stubbs Pool had good numbers of damselflies (various), Banded Demoiselles, Emperors, and Four-spotted Chasers. I also thought I saw a Willow Emerald waft past me at one point – which wouldn’t be surprising because last season I found several of these new colonisers at other nearby sites – but I lost it against the background foliage and didn’t manage to find it again, so I can’t be sure. The Four-spotted Chaser in my main image gave me one of the nicest photo opportunities of the day by suddenly giving up the frantic chasing and clashing he’d been doing up and down the edge of the pool, and coming gently to rest on a leaf right in front of me. He was so close, in fact, that I had to step back off the fishing peg to allow the camera to focus. The image has had a minor crop for composition, and some denoising, but otherwise it’s as shot.
R: L2, C10, D29.
