Showing posts with label Scarce Chaser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scarce Chaser. Show all posts

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Paxton Pits May Butterfly and Dragonfly Survey

Although warm and sunny there were worryingly few butterflies around though the Dragonflies made up for them with good sightings of Norfolk Hawkers and a very good year for Banded Demoiselle numbers. A lot of time was spent early on refreshing our ID skills for Variable (narrow or exclamation mark top thorax stripe, spur mark with stem, short amount of blue on S9 and 'bat' mark on tail segment), Azure (wider top stripe on thorax, but less than Common, Spur mark no stem, large amount of blue on S9 and spur-type mark on tip of abdomen) and Common (very blue thorax, wine glass mark, lots of blue on abdomen etc). Other dragonflies photographs are Blue-tailed Damselfly and Four-spot and Scarce Chasers. The highlights of the very few Butterflies were a Small Copper and a Grizzled skipper - the latter in a new area so hopefully they are spreading. I couldn't resist two other subjects that caught my lens - a Sallow Kitten moth caterpillar and some Sawfly larvae.

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Paxton Butterfly and Dragonfly Survey

Last year we found a single Grizzled Skipper on the equivalent survey, this year more than 10 so there is definitely a breeding colony. We also located one very early Green-Eyed (Norfolk) Hawker, a Scarce Chaser along with the Four-Spot Chasers, a Hairy Dragonfly, four species of 'Blue' Damselflies and also Banded Demoiselles.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Paxton July Survey Butterflies and Dragonflies

Saturday was our monthly survey at Paxton Pits of butterfly and dragonfly numbers. Here a few of those recorded - Small Copper, Green-veined White, Small skipper, Essex Skipper, Ruddy Darts, Migrant Hawker, Blue-tailed damselfly, Emerald Damselfly, Emperor Dragonfly and Scarce Chaser 

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Dragonfly Survey at Paxton Pits

 Yesterday was our monthly Dragonfly and Butterfly survey at Paxton Pits. Scarce Chasers (1,2) and Norfolk Hawkers (3) were the most numerous of the Dragonfly species followed by Four-spotted Chasers (4) with occasional Emperors (5) and Black-tailed Skimmers (6). 'Blue' damselflies were too numerous to count so estimates of numbers were recorded - all three species present (just Common shown in various coupled positions)  plus Red-eyed (11). Lots of Banded Demoiselles.  Butterflies on the other hand were noticeably scarce - occasional Brimstone, Small Heath and a couple of other species. Finshing with a Cuckoo