Southern Comfort!

With a day off work planned for yesterday (Friday) and the weather looking good, I decided to visit Cliffe Marshes where a few Southern Emerald Damselflies had been seen a few days earlier. This is generally a reliable site for this species where they seem to appear most years in small numbers. I arrived around 08:45 in lovely warm sunshine already and after parking up, made the 30 minute walk along the track to the site to start my search. Even at this early time, plenty of Ruddy Darters were seen basking in the sunshine along with Blue tailed Damselflies. I spent about and hour and a half checking a few areas and some of the drier ditches where I managed to find 3 Southern Emerald Damselfly. There is so much habitat here not even checked as some is no doubt private which must hold this species out on the marsh, but it was nice to connect with this rare species. It was then down to spending some time watching, studying and photographing them and with some patience and stealthy stalking, I was able to leave with a set of hopeful pleasing images. I couldn't find anymore on my way back out but I'm sure a later visit in the day over the next week or so will produce better numbers in this area. A check of the ditches on the way back produced 2 Southern Migrant Hawker, one a stunning male on territory. Hopefully, I can catch up with these in a few weeks time. Every bush on the way back seemed to have Ruddy Darters falling out of them and Black tailed Skimmers were numerous along the warmed up track. A few Scarce Emerald Damselfly were seen along with Emerald Damselfly. I arrived back at the car where after a nice drink, I then drove over to New Hythe to look for Lesser Emperors... which was a success. I will post a few photos hopefully in a few days time, assuming they come out well. 

Southern Emerald Damselfly - male

Showing the bi-coloured pterostigma 

Southern Emerald Damselfly - female