Not So 'Scarce' This Year

With some sunshine forecast for yesterday morning, I decided to spend a few hours at Westbere Lakes again to see whether the Norfolk Hawkers had increased in number. In about 3 hours, I only managed to find 4 Norfolk Hawker and hoped for more but I suspect their numbers will slowly build over the next few weeks. The day however belonged to the Scarce Chasers were I managed to find 42 which I believe is the most I have seen at this site on one visit. During the last few years, I have only just about managed double figures with this species so to see this number was excellent. Throughout my walk, it was nice to see a good number of males on territory and its always a nice sight watching them zoom off their chosen perch to see off other males before normally returning back to the same perch. With this in mind, I decided to try to find a male that I could photograph that didn't have a cluttered background and after a good search, I found my target. This species with a slow approach will let you get quite close and I was then able to take a number of pleasing photos of this male. As can be seen halfway up the blue abdomen on this species by the dark markings, there are signs where the female has hung on where the pair have mated and the powder blue pruinescence has been removed. Other species noted on my walk included 10 Black tailed Skimmer, 3 Hairy Dragonfly, 1 Emperor Dragonfly, 1 Four spotted Chaser, c50 Banded Demoiselle and hundreds of Variable, Azure and Blue tailed Damselflies. There were also good numbers of Red eyed Damselfly noted. Hopefully in between the heavy showers which we seem to have at the moment, I can make a few more visits during the week to Grove Ferry and Westbere Lakes to monitor how the various species are doing this season.

 

Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva) male