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Stephen Burch's Birding & Dragonfly Website |
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Home | Trip Reports | Gallery | UK index | Oxon pics | UK pics | Dragonflies | Other Nature | Links |
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Stephen Burch's Birding & Dragonfly Website |
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Home | Trip Reports | Gallery | UK index | Oxon pics | UK pics | Dragonflies | Other Nature | Links |
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Migrant Hawker, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 27 September 2014 Very limited fare now, so late in the season - just Common Darters and Migrant Hawkers seem to be left now. |
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Common Darter, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 31 August 2014 Flight shots are never easy but the conditions helped for this one. |
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Migrant Hawker, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 31 August 2014 Good numbers present today. |
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Small Red Damselfly, Cothill Fen NNR, Oxon 16 August 2014 Several still present at this site which was very waterlogged compared with previous years. Care needed! There were also several Keeled Skimmer but they were not being obliging in the blustery, dull conditions. Click to enlarge. |
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Small-red eyed Damselflies, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 3 August 2014 Note the remarkable effect of surface tension keeping the female from being fully submerged. |
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Brown Hawker, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 3 August 2014 One unusually settled in a reasonably accessible location. |
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Small red-eyed Damselfly, Shellingford Pit, Oxon 27 July 2014 One of at least 5 at this site that was simply buzzing with Odonata activity this afternoon in the sunny, hot conditions. |
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Common Hawker, Ardsheilach, Ardnamurchan, Scotland 13 July 2014 A nicely maturing male. Seen on another abortive hunt for a Northern Emerald in mediocre conditions. |
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Scarce Emerald Damselfly, Thompson Common, Norfolk 22 June 2014 Done it! 11 years after starting photographing British dragonflies, I have now managed to get images of all those regularly occurring in this country! These damselflies were difficult to reliably separate from Common Emeralds, but this early in the season I believe that the great majority of adults at this site where Scarce Emeralds. They all seemed noticeably larger than Common Emeralds. This one just shows a lack of pruinescence at the rear of S2. Also the white fringes to the pterostigma appear very noticeable which I don't think is so obvious on Common. Also supporting the Scarce ID is the metallic area on the lateral lobes of the prothorax (when viewed at 1:1)! |
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Scarce Emerald Damselflies, Thompson Common, Norfolk 22 June 2014 The male of this mating pair shows much more clearly the lack of pruinescence at the rear of segment 2. Again the white fringes to the pterostigma can be seen. In the female, the two spots on S2 do appear reasonably rectangular (which is diagnostic of Scarce), but this is hard to sure of, even at 1:1. |
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Norfolk Hawker, Strumpshaw Fen RSPB, Norfolk 21 June 2014 Very easy to see along the Meadow Trail in good numbers - the lovely warm weather helped. Click to enlarge |
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Norfolk Hawker, Strumpshaw Fen RSPB, Norfolk 21 June 2014 See above. The breeze was slowing them down quite a bit at one point, so I managed to get this flight shot - never easy with dragonflies! |
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Common Blue Damselfly, Otmoor, Oxon 14 June 2014 Not the best weather for dragonflies, and only the damsels were posing for photos today! I seem to be finding it hard this season to connect with anything much larger! |
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Large Red Damselfly, Harwell Laboratory, Oxon 18 May 2014 A surprisingly productive brief visit to the Lagoon - 20+ of these and numerous Azures. Click to enlarge. |
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Banded Demoiselle, River Thames near Cholsey, Oxon
17 May 2014 There were hundreds of these present along the footpath south from Cholsey Marsh, before the railway bridge, but no Club-tails that I could find. Click to enlarge. |
| © All pictures copyright Stephen Burch | |
