Young Red Eyes

This morning I took my first trip in nearly a year to the Lower Moor nature reserve in Wiltshire, in search of Odonata. I'd barely walked into the the first enclosure when I accidentally disturbed a fresh female Red-eyed Damselfly, but the individual in my main image - also a female - was hanging out on the boardwalk handrail, and sat very patiently while I photographed her from every achievable angle.

My big hope for the boardwalk had been Downy Emerald dragonflies, which over many years have been using the handrail uprights as emergence supports, but today I was disappointed. In fact, the water level at the site is lower than I've ever seen it, and the normally marshy ground below and behind the boardwalk is currently so dry that I'm not sure how many Downy Emeralds will choose to use those posts this year. Many dragonfly nymphs will walk a fair distance in search of a good support before eclosing - a few years ago at Croome, R and I saw a Broad-bodied Chaser emerging a couple of metres up a cedar tree that must be a good ten metres from the edge of the lake - but the weedy, dry and cracked terrain beneath the boardwalk at Lower Moor might well present too much of an obstacle.

My second image shows the kind of catastrophe that can befall a dragonfly when it chooses its emergence support badly. This is a female Downy Emerald, which someone pointed out to me in the bankside vegetation by the reedbed at the corner of the larger lake, where again I'd been hoping to find something else. In previous years I've seen a mass emergence of Four-spotted Chasers at this corner, and a couple of years ago I watched an Emperor successfully eclose there. But this poor Downy was completely disabled, and there was a male a few feet away in a similar state, both of them having had their wings mashed while they were still soft and vulnerable. I can only think that they both tried to eclose in the midst of the thick vegetation on the bank. 

I offered the female a twig to hang onto, and moved her across to the nearby nettle bed to reduce the danger of her being stepped on, but though she managed to cling to the twig, and then to the rope of the lifebelt that hangs by the path, all her attempts to get her wings to work were a total failure. Someone else who was there at the time tried to convince me that she was still inflating them and would ultimately be fine, but this was just wishful thinking: once the wing veins have hardened, which they had in both of these damaged dragons, the wings are set, and the situation is as good as it's ever going to be. Probably the kindest thing that could happen to them both is that a bird with a nest of hungry chicks to feed will find them and deliver a swift, if brutal, coup de grace.

Sad as I was for the two dragons that won't get to mature and breed, I wasn't unhappy with today's visit - within the space of an hour I saw over a hundred damselflies, mostly immature Common Blues and Red-eyes, but also a large number of unidentifiable tenerals that were lifting away into the trees; and I also spotted a third Downy Emerald, which flew fast and high across the picnic clearing while I was standing by the lake. After the two that failed the emergence examination, it was heartening to see one with a good chance of closing the circle and successfully completing its life cycle.

In fact, the worst thing about my trip was that when I reached the excellent Dragonfly Café on the smaller lake, it turned out to be closed. Because I was seriously in need of sustenance by this point, I decided to brave the café at the Water Park Gateway, where my coffee was accompanied by the least pleasing muffin I've eaten in quite a while. Then, because I was just next door, I thought I might as well pop into Cotswold Outdoor to see if they had any comfortable walking shoes, and emerged - an hour later, and considerably lighter of bank balance - having bought both shoes and boots. Be warned: if your expectations of a visit to Lower Moor include superior coffee and cake, don't go on a Monday or Tuesday.