I kicked off my tenth year of blipping in good style today, by visiting Chartley Moss in Staffordshire. This floating peat bog is a privately owned site that’s currently managed by Natural England, and can only be visited under their guidance. Today’s walk was run in conjunction with the British Dragonfly Society as part of National Nature Reserves Week, but I know there is another chance to visit the site soon if you’re a member of the RPS Nature Group, and I believe that Natural England are running another guided walk in July, to mark the 60th anniversary of their leasing of the bog.
I wrote quite a lot about the geology and ecology of Chartley Moss after my previous visit, so I won’t repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that it’s an extraordinary place, and I recommend you to go if you can. It’s not the most comfortable of environments on a hot and sunny afternoon, I must admit, but I managed to come home without getting either sunburnt or bitten, or falling into the bog (unlike one of the site volunteers, who recently stepped in the wrong place and sank in up to his thighs).
Tim, the BDS Board member who led today’s walk, told me that based on previous monitoring they estimate a population of 1500-2000 White-faced Darters at Chartley, and while we saw nothing like that number – because they emerge asynchronously across the season, and each individual only lives for a couple of weeks – both the meres in the area we visited were teeming with these tiny dragons. Because of the heat they were extremely fast and skittish, and because of the strong sunlight the conditions for photography weren’t ideal, so I didn’t have my best day with the camera, but it was fun to try to sneak up on perched individuals without putting them to flight, which is what I managed to do here. My second photo here shows a pair in cop, and gives an idea of the different markings of the sexes. My third choice photo tonight is a shot of Sericomyia lappona, a hoverfly I’d never seen before, which is a peat bog specialist; I’ve posted it to Facebook.
Before I go, I’d like to say a sincere thank you to everyone who responded so kindly to yesterday’s anniversary blip. I’m very grateful to you all.
