After ploughing through useful but boring tasks all morning, at lunchtime I paid another visit to the Community Orchard at Cleeve Prior, in search of the hawker I glimpsed yesterday. Today I think I spotted two different males, but they have a plethora of ponds to patrol (I was originally told that there were three there, but the other day I found two more, and just today I discovered that there are actually seven), so they don’t hang about, and their cryptic colouring is designed to make them hard to track in mixed habitats like this, so I can’t be absolutely sure.
I’d accepted defeat and was walking back to the car when I almost stepped on this very fresh Four-spotted Chaser and put him to flight, but luckily he only went a short distance before sinking back down into the lush grass. Having found his new resting place with the binoculars, I secured some shots with the long lens before risking trying to approach him, but once I stopped marching about and disturbing him he was relatively calm, and by edging forward slowly I was able to get within macro distance, and kneel down next to him to take this photo.
By giving me my first Four-spotted Chaser of the season the Community Orchard has already come up trumps, but I believe it still has more to offer. According to a notice at the entrance seventeen Odonata species have been recorded at the site, and as this Four-spotted Chaser is only the fourth I’ve seen there so far, I’m a long way from exhausting its potential. I expect to be paying regular visits to Cleeve throughout the rest of the summer.
Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone who viewed my 10-year anniversary blip yesterday, and said such nice things about this journal. It’s good to be lucky and happy, but it’s even better when you know that you are.
R: C1 D11.
