Black-tailed Skimmers, thousands of Common Blues and Scarce Chasers

I took a break from the Sunday ironing and popped across the road to Stanwick Lakes. The ponds and pits around the Visitor Centre are great places for Black-tailed Skimmers, so I hoped to find a few emerging. Walking clockwise around the large gravel pit, close to the water, I must have disturbed over 2000 emergent Common Blue Damselflies. There were similar numbers around the other waters close to the centre. too I never tire of this experience and it always makes me wonder how many there actually are and how many these pits support in a year - 10,000+ maybe? Not forgetting the hundreds of Red-eyed Damselflies and Blue-tailed Damselflies! I only found one emergent Black-tailed Skimmer though - they are only just starting to emerge to I am sure there are more to come in the next few days.

In the afternoon, I took a walk along the Nene at Wadenhoe. Fewer than expected Banded Demoiselles were present along the river, with good numbers of Red-eyes on the lily pads. I counted around 15 Scarce Chaser, including one pair incop and around three emergent adults. All the males showed signs of the immature orange colouration through their blue pruinescence. I walked up to Achurch and through the rides to Lilford, hoping to find more immatures. Only one immature male was around along with a male Hairy Dragonfly.

Black-tailed Skimmer

Scarce Chaser

Scarce Chasers incop

Immature Male Scarce Chaser

Scarce Chaser

Scarce Chaser