Wednesday 10 June 2015

Dragon hunting

Warm and sunny so spent most of the day dragon hunting. First up was Stargate, always good for Broad-bodied Chaser. Like everywhere, this site is suffering from the lack of rain fall and was very quiet at first with just a handful of damsels. After a while we brief fly-bys from male and female Broad-bodied and a single Four-spotted Chaser, but with no real chance of a photo we headed for pastures new.

With the Dragonhunter in tow we headed to Far Pasture where he immediately picked up a resting male Broad-bodied Chaser that allowed some distant shots.

Broad-bodied Chaser
Broad-bodied Chaser
After good, close fly-bys from 3+ and 1+ Broad-bodied Chaser we left the Dragonhunter to it and headed home.

A few chores and it was out again. Burdon Moor was a little breezy, but after a few minutes I had brief fly-bys from single male and female Broad-bodied Chaser.

The sheltered Kibblesworth Brick Works was much better with loads of damsels in the margins and 20+ Four-spotted Chasers zipping around the reeds. Several of the chasers perched up between forays to give photo opportunities.


Four-spotted Chaser
Four-spotted Chaser
Leaving the main pool I came across a very fresh Black-tailed Skimmer on  small patch of earth.

Black-tailed Skimmer
The dragon was unable to fly and a closer look showed that the right wings were overlapping and stuck together.

Showing the 'glued' wings
A finger
With the dragon doomed if it couldn't fly I picked it up and managed to prise the wings apart. A happy ending as it was able to fly off strongly

2 comments:

  1. Well done Rob, looks like an immature male.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Never seen a Black-tailed in that colouration. Wow. Good lad helping it out with those wings.

    ReplyDelete