A turn in the weather to warm sunshine (16 degrees!) brought out a few emerging dragonflies at Yardley Chase this morning. After quite some hunting, we found a single male Downy Emerald emerging among several Four-spotted Chaser, including one unfortunate male being eaten from the tip of his abdomen by a spider, we rescued the Chaser, but it died through fluid loss. Two years as a larvae, 1 hour as an adult and you're breakfast for a hungry spider!! We found 6+ Hairy Dragonfly exuviae including a couple emerging. Also present were several Large Red, Azure and Blue-tailed Damselfly. The cold weather of recent weeks has certainly slowed emergence and adult numbers are still low. The coming weeks looks good though, so we may see a bit of a catch-up - I would expect Banded Demoiselle and Broad-bodied Chaser to be around by now. We did see a few BB Chaser larvae at the surface of the water, which is a good sign that they will emerge soon.
