My favourite photo of the day is this close-up portrait of an immature male Large Red Damselfly, which I took at my patio pond this morning. His wings had been damaged on emergence, and for a while I feared that his unusual passivity was due to him being unable to fly – until reason kicked in, and I realised that as he was clinging to a stem where I know he didn’t emerge, he must have flown to get there. I now assume that he was sitting so still because it was a good deal colder today than the quality of the light might lead you to believe.
While this is my best photo of the day, I’m also including the most exciting, which shows a female Hairy Dragonfly ovipositing in the Orchard Pond at Cleeve Prior Community Orchard. Only this morning the County Recorder described the male I’ve recorded at this site as an outlier, because Cleeve is right on the eastern boundary of the county, and there’s no clear connection between this site and the next nearest ones at Croome and Trench Wood, which are both about sixteen miles away by road. But breeding activity strongly suggests an established population, so either the Hairies are moving in from Warwickshire and setting up home at Cleeve, or there’s more Hairy Dragonfly activity in Worcestershire than previously thought.
I’ve been trying to think where else in the region could support this dragon – which was originally a wetland species, but has adapted to be able to colonise well-vegetated canals, lakes and flooded gravel pits – but off the top of my head I can’t think of anywhere close to Cleeve Prior. I’ll have to ask the Warwickshire County Recorder if he knows of any nearby colonies over the county border.
R: C2, D5.
