JC's Traveblog

Thankfully, September has begun much better than August ended – well, than August was all the way through, to be accurate. While one of us remained chez nous awaiting a delivery, I took myself and my camera gear over to visit a place we’d been told about by one of Carol’s Greensand Trust colleagues intending to maximize my use of the late summer sunshine. The place in question was Cornmill Meadows in the Lee Valley Park and, just north of Waltham Abbey, it boasts a dragonfly sanctuary. Irresistible!

After a mere two wrong turns (I still don’t have a satnav and my Navigation Officer was at home waiting for stuff), I finally arrived at my intended car park. The car park was surprisingly, free – things were getting better and better. A notice board at the exit to the car park announced, “Dragonfly Walk”, and suggested that I follow the way marks. I set off along the path but, try as I might, I could find nothing that I would call a way marking sign: no posts, no arrows on tree trunks, nothing. I did bump into a river with paths going left and right, however. Though there were still no signs, there was an unusually cooperative Brown Hawker (Aeshna grandis) hanging in the tree beside the river right in front of me. These guys are tireless flyers and seem to stop only rarely. It was half hidden by a leaf but it was an opportunity, nonetheless.

I flipped a mental coin and turned right. After a few hundred yards I came to another dividing of the ways and a bridge over the river. There was a public footpath sign but again no “Dragonfly Walk” sign. Since the footpath seemed to be heading back towards the road, I crossed the bridge. Here, without an arrow to indicate direction, was another notice board saying “follow the Dragonfly Walk to learn more”. “I’d love to. Where is it?”, I muttered. There were two paths, both of which went alongside streams so I flipped my mental coin again and moved on.

I must have done something right ‘cos I was soon watching some fabulous Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryx splendens) flitting about in the sunlight. In common with most damselflies, these chaps sit with their wings folded along the length of their abdomen. However, occasionally, often just after they have alighted, they flick their wings open once or twice, almost as though they are flexing their muscles. With a little patience, timing and luck, you can catch them with their wings open on pixels. After a few failures, I struck lucky. On the left is the female of the species with clear, greenish tinted wings. On the right, the male showing off its striking metallic blue-green  colour.

Continuing along the path after thanking the Banded Demoiselles, I came to another notice board mentioning the “Dragonfly Walk”. More by luck than judgement, I seemed to have happened across the correct path. The correct path produced quite a few of the “usual suspects”, Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum) and Ruddy Darters (Sympetrum sanguineum), which I’m getting a little blasé about, but there was also quite a bit of hawker activity. Along most of the walk the hawkers were so restless that I couldn’t make an id. Then, on a stretch of the return route, I hit pay dirt. Several hawkers were not only picking spots in which to hover, but were sometimes alighting on grass stems on my side of the river. I now know that they are Migrant Hawkers (Aeshna mixta), one of the so-called “mosaic hawkers”, and what magnificent creatures they are. Twice I tried to tear myself away and twice I returned, captivated.

All good things must come to an end, though, and eventually I tore myself away so I could return to fire up the September barbecue. It’s possible to while away several pleasant hours at Cornmill Meadows. I will return though it may have to wait until next season, now.

We’ve been back from La Belle France for about six weeks now and it seems a little like a distant memory. Despite our suffering worse weather than we’d hoped, we did seem to reuse quite a lot of pixels on our wildlife and nature interests. We were lucky enough to see several species new to us and our catalogues have grown substantially. In that respect, it was a very successful trip.

It’s been a long and laborious process but I’ve finally managed to update our insect web albums. Not wishing to make any single album soporifically large, I’ve now separated butterflies from moths, and dragonflies from damselflies.

Those sharing my love of six-footed friends can see more than these two preview shots in the updated web albums here:

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/Butterflies 

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/Moths 

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/Dragonflies 

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/Damselflies

I’ve written previously about liking the powerful effect a black background lends to some photographic images. This year, in France, we were in a position to get a few such images again. Once more it was, of course, more by luck than design. In this case, luck came in the form of a shaded woodland walk beside the very first few kilometres of La Rigole, a purpose built small canal feeding water into the Canal du Midi. Bright sunlight filtering through broad-leafed trees is a typically high contrast situation and, hey presto, some very dark backgrounds become possible.

La Rigole gave us our first encounters with Beautiful Demoiselles. That’s a  pretty crappy but nonetheless appropriate English name, in my opinion. Let’s give such a splendid creature its equally splendid Latin name: Calopteryx virgo. They proved to be a little awkward to photograph in some respects, insisting usually on sitting directly facing the sun. Consequently, the magnificent metallic blue of the males’ wings tended to be unlit. Eventually, though, I found one sitting on a pleasantly sunlit leaf  in front of a very shadowy rock beside the water. I confess that I have been a little naughtier than my usual self and cloned out a small but distracting blurred leaf that was inconsiderate enough to intrude into the frame at top left. The black is entirely natural, though.

I didn’t realize I’d be getting a dark background in this second example. The subject was an unknown critter to me and I was simply anxious to photograph it to add to my insect catalogue. The critter in question turned out to be a Hawthorn Shield Bug. It had the good grace and foresight to pose on a particularly artistic fern leaf – I just love that gracious curve up into the corner of the frame – with no surrounding clutter, poised above a wonderfully dark stretch of La Rigole.

If only all insects were as cooperative and photographically inclined.

Last year, I began pursuing my long-standing love of butterflies, camera in hand, at our local Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve. However, I soon became distracted by Sandhouse Lane’s array of odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) which provided a fresh photographic interest. I had little idea what species I was photographing half the time but I was hooked. I possessed only a rudimentary field guide to “Insects of Britain and Western Europe” showing some odonata but, distressingly, I had some pictures that I was uncertain about. Looking for more experienced help, I discovered the British Dragonfly Society and emailed a picture (right) to someone. I waited … and waited … and waited. I’m still waiting. No response. Unimpressed!

Eventually I purchased the much more comprehensive “Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe” and have now identified that first mysterious damselfly. (It was an Emerald Damselfly.)

A few weeks ago my friend and fellow wildlife enthusiast, Rosemary, sent me a link to a Web site called iSpot (“your place to share nature”). Initially, I had a quick look but did little more than sign up for an account (it’s free). iSpot seems to be associated with the Open University and is part of some initiative called the OPAL Partnership which apparently attempts to promote nature study. Sounds good.

During our September trip to France last year, whilst in France camping at our favourite dairy sheep farm at Fanjeaux, I happily snapped away at a whole bunch of odonata that were new to me. Let’s face it, being a complete beginner most of them are new to me. At the time I managed to identify most of them with my old rudimentary field guide. In my collection, however, I had snagged a couple of pictures of one small and very pale damselfly. I harboured suspicions that it might be an immature insect with its colouration not yet formed but was essentially completely floored.

Fast forward to now and … enter iSpot! Users of iSpot submit field observations of nature, usually accompanied by photographs. I was sorting through my odonata pictures and remembered my unidentified pale damselfly. I figured I had nothing to lose and I’d already got my id so I entered my unknown damselfly into iSpot as an observation asking for help with identification. I also entered a very large unknown-to-me moth from the same location in France. On both occasions, within 24 hours, I had helpful responses.

The response I got (from RoyW) to the damselfly was particularly educational:

This is, as you suspected, an immature damselfly which has not yet developed it’s full colours. Recently emerged damselflies can be very tricky to identify, although they do usually show the pattern they have once mature (it’s just very faint and lacks the bright colours).

It is usually best to try and identify whether you are looking at a male or female before you try to identify the species (yours is a male because there is a swelling under the second abdominal segment, counting back from the thorax – first segment is very short).

The main visible feature that identifies this one as to species is the pale dorsal surface to only the eighth abdomen segment (near the end) – this will become the blue ‘tail’ when it matures and contrast with the rest of the abdomen which becomes black on top.

Compare the markings with an illustration, or photo, of a mature male and you will see that the patterns match even though the colours don’t.

Well, why not, indeed – I can do that. Here’s my own photograph of a mature male Blue-tailed Damselfly for comparison and I can see exactly what RoyW means. I can’t thank RoyW enough, though I have tried. Just to complete the picture, here also is a pair of Blue-tailed Damselflies clearly trying to make some more immature Blue-tailed Damselflies.

I am most certainly a big fan of iSpot so thanks to all there and to Rosemary, too.

Now I’ll have to update both my lepidoptera and odonata Web albums with my new knowledge.

In a very unusual spell of fine weather lasting precisely one day and in between a few chores like buying expensive Euros and fetching our caravan to make ready for our coming trip to France, I enjoyed a couple of hours back at good ol’ Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve. I wanted to try a slightly larger close focus ring, 31mm, to get a tad closer if possible. I’m clearly making the most of this while the wildlife season lasts. I enjoy this site so much not only because of the wildlife there but because I’m often the only visitor. This time, though, I actually did see another person walking three dogs.

Most of our invasion of Painted Lady butterflies seemed largely to have disappeared. I did see two hangers on but most of the now reduced Lepidoptera activity was down to Gatekeepers and very skittish Common Blues that just didn’t want to cooperate with the camera. I soon got frustrated by their lack of cooperation and went off to investigate the dragonfly and damselfly pools. They, too, seemed a little quieter at first but then I spotted a mating pair of Common [Ed: correction, 2010-02-08] Ruddy Darters in their Copulation Wheel formation.  They wouldn’t let me approach too close, perhaps not unnaturally, but I did manage to grab a worthwhile shot which I’ve cropped just a little (right).

I moved on to where I’d previously seen a male Common [Ed: correction, 2010-02-08] Ruddy Darter hunting. Darters are so called because they tend to sit motionless on a perch watching for flies, then dart out to catch them, subsequently returning to their perch. Spotted Flycatchers (the birds) exhibit very similar behaviour which is called sallying. Knowing the perch gives you a fighting chance of snapping them ‘cos you can line up on the perch and wait for your subject. Sure enough, my cooperative little subject was, indeed, hunting on his usual patch. This time I did get close enough to benefit from my larger close focus ring. This shot (left) is full frame, not cropped.

I moved on to the main pool and spent quite a time just watching but seeing little that was new or appealing photographically. I did waste a lot of time trying without success to track a Hawker of some kind in flight but that really was wishful thinking and was never likely to happen. I was about to move on when a mating pair of damselflies landed on a branch right beside me and formed their Copulation Wheel. Yikes! The position and light were great, the background was great, I just had to bang off about 60 frames trying repeatedly to get my focus accurate. Even an aperture of f16 with the close focus ring gives a depth of field that’s very thin and swaying slightly loses focus, hence my multiple attempts. I’d taken a monopod but left it in the car boot thinking I’d never be able to use it swiftly enough. Wrong, you foolish person! In this situation it would have been perfect. Anyway, I’ve discarded the fuzzy shots (about 50 of them) and here, again uncropped, is a good one (right). I’m not completely certain about this species but I suspect that it is Nehalennia speciosa, the Pygmy or Dwarf Damselfly [Ed: correction, 2010-02-08] a pair of Emerald Damselflies.

I’ve only very recently begun to try to identify dragonflies and damselflies. This new found interest was entirely due to the relative plethora of the things at our local Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve. On the left is one of the first I spotted. I had no idea what it was but I snapped it and hurried home, metaphorically speaking, to identify it. In my book, Insects of Britain and Western Europe by Michael Chinery, I spotted a diagram that looked similar. It was a diagram of a female Keeled Skimmer. Excellent! In my mind, my new found friend became a female Keeled Skimmer.

On a subsequent visit I was excited to discover further different species such as those on the right. Although there are several superficially similar red-bodied species, I was pretty sure that this was a male Common Darter. When in doubt, settle on the common. On that visit I was also fortunate enough to witness a pair of Common Darters mating, joined in what is apparently termed the Copulation Wheel, I was happy with my new found interest.

After my third or fourth visit a concern formed in my mind. The concern turned to serious doubt. A male Keeled Skimmer has a relatively broad light blue abdomen according to my field guide. Whilst I hadn’t seen anything resembling such a thing here, I was happy to believe I had female Keeled Skimmers. Furthermore, though I had witnessed mating pairs of Common Darters, other than those that were inverted in a Copulation Wheel and thus difficult to see, I hadn’t actually identified anything as being a female Common Darter, either. Very suspicious! Not only very suspicious but such a state of affairs would do nothing at all for the great Mr. Darwin’s cause. We can’t go having dragonfly immaculate conception now, can we? No, that would never do.

A swift trawl of the Internet found a few photos of female Common Darters. Ah ha! Just as I had begun to suspect, my female “Keeled Skimmer” was, in fact, most likely to be a female Common Darter. Normality restored, mating may continue and species may go forth and multiply.

The trouble is my field guide is particularly weak on females. It is very happy to show the males in all their normally colourful glory but it tends to steer clear of the females. Only a few females are shown. The females, it appears, can be quite similar to the untrained eye and mine is certainly untrained.

I did snap a couple of dainty damselflies that still completely elude me. I have no idea what these two are, though I have suspicions concerning one. I’ve even emailed them off to the British Dragonfly Society to see if the experts will help me out. I’m wondering if they might be immature specimens with colours not yet fully formed. I’ve heard nothing back yet.

Clearly, I need a better field guide.

Odonata is the order of insects that includes the dragonflies and damselflies. Today, while Carol was off meeting her genealogical pals, I went off to meet some of my insect pals. Another chap wandered in flashing a new Canon EOS 50D equipped with a 500mm Sigma lens and a close focussing ring. Grrr! I carried on regardless with my EOS 40D and 300mm lens. [Note to self: really should replace our old film SLR close focussing rings with some that are compatible with a digital body.]

The butterflies really had quietened down even though it was quite sunny to begin with. I was trying to find a small white to add the collection but they were either too ragged or too uncooperative, sometimes both. I did, however, manage to grab another shot of a Green-veined White (left) which, given its high-contrast background, seems quite artistic to me. I am, however, a self-confessed artistic numbskull and hardly qualified to judge.

The thistles were, as usual, attracting various bees so I snapped a couple of them for good measure and a new subject. I thought the markings and colours might make them relatively easy to identify. Silly me! I remain clueless as to their identity.

The real gems came down by the side of the pond which seemed to be teeming, relatively speaking, with damselflies and dragonflies of various sorts. It was also teeming with silly folks with 300mm lenses slipping on grass and falling on their backsides with a jarring crash. Ouch! However, I recovered and was particularly keen on a new species for me: what I think is a so-called Common Darter (far left). I wish creatures with such wonderful markings and colouration were not called “common” but I get their point. I was also excited by the very delicate White-legged Damselfly (middle left). Of course, I had no idea what I was snapping until I returned home to the books. I think the third suspect (near left) is a repeat of a female Common Darter but don’t quote me.

I was most intrigued by what I correctly guessed was egg-laying activity. I’d seen some pairs both flying and resting coupled together. This formation, I now know, is called the copulation wheel for obvious reasons (left). Following that, however, the pairs of some species fly along joined in what is known as the tandem position for ovipositing whereby they repeatedly dip down to the water to allow the female (rear of the pair) to deposit her eggs. They move very fast and it’s darn difficult to snap them but I tried and got something half-way recognizable (right).

At this rate I’ll be joining the British Dragonfly Society. They have a place at Wicken Fen that must be worth a visit.

On Friday Carol was off playing with her mother and I was left at home to amuse myself. So, after I’d finished my chores, I took myself on another hunting expedition, armed only with a camera, to Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve to see if I could add to my growing collection of insect portraits. The sun was being typically shy when I arrived so the only activity in which the butterflies seemed interested was resting and conserving energy. Inactivity makes them a little difficult to spot so I resorted to the rather unsubtle device of tramping about in the vegetation to scare them up. Close to the trees I managed to disturb and track a Speckled Wood (right) which obligingly settled back down on the ground for me to photograph.

I wasn’t seeing anything else new in butterfly land so I wandered around the rest of the reserve to see what else I could find. What I found was quite a few damselflies and dragonflies, a couple of which cooperated long enough for me to get the camera fixed on them. The damselfly (right) is a so-called Common Blue Damselfly. That seems to be a rather ignoble name to me for such an attractively marked and delicate creature. The dragonfly (left) is the similarly common (what else would I expect) but somewhat oddly named Southern Hawker. I assume it doesn’t keep spitting and the only thing that I can see it selling is death to other flying insects. Imagine being a modestly-sized fly and having that giant screaming at you head-on. This specimen had a wingspan of about 3 inches/75 mm.

The sun did put in a half-hearted appearance for my second hour and managed to liven up the locals a little. On a second visit to butterfly heaven I snagged a better shot of a Gatekeeper (left) courtesy of there being more light making possible a tighter aperture setting. Then, as I was leaving, a couple of whites began feeding perfectly positioned at my eye level. How considerate of them. Whites can seem a little tedious compared to their more colourfully marked cousins. They also tend to keep their topsides hidden since they most often settle with their wings closed. In the case of this Green-veined White (right), though, the situation was perfect as the markings giving rise to its name are on its underside. Just look at the eye, too. It’s speckled – quite staggering.

A very worthwhile trip from an initially unpromising day.

On Sunday, Carol introduced me to one of the sites that she and her colleagues at the Greensand Trust look after, the Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve. The reserve is a relatively small area surrounding a disused sand pit and is sandwiched, some might say hidden, between Heath and Reach and the A5. Much of the trust’s conservation work somewhat perversely seems to involve pulling plants up and/or cutting trees down. However, it also seems to be effective. Almost as soon as we had entered the reserve, we came across an area seething with Lepidoptera. I had to content myself with looking since I was unfortunately without a camera.

Yesterday, having first busied myself with an arduous job replacing one of the towing electrical sockets on our car, I corrected my original oversight and returned to Sandhouse Lane in the late afternoon camera-in-hand. Well, camera-in-rucksack actually but you get my drift. Butterflies like sun as much as I do and, since there was little in evidence, I wasn’t certain that my intended subjects would cooperate but cooperate they did.

Right inside the gate I ended up stalking a Comma butterfly (left), albeit slightly the worse for wear (which I noticed only after returning to process the shots). It didn’t settle for long before it zoomed off to tussle with an intruder, presumably hence its wear. Incidentally, it’s called a Comma because there is a tiny white mark in the shape of a comma – on the underside. Next up was a brown (right); brown butterflies are many and various and can be difficult to identify in the heat of battle, as it were. Photos help greatly; they may not be quite as effective as an ether jar and a magnifying glass but the pants weather damages populations quite enough without over-zealous collectors imposing further reductions. This one is a Gatekeeper, a.k.a. Hedge Brown.

In this summer (I can’t believe I said that – this, a summer?) of Painted Ladies, Sandhouse Lane had what looked like more than its fair share but, having snapped a Painted Lady on our buddleia recently, I was more interested in other quarry. [Aside: good Lord, stalking quarry in a quarry, what a silly language!] On our first excursion I’d seen an unidentified blue and what I suspected was a Small Copper. I was hoping they’d reappear and sure enough they did. Blues are a little perverse, sometimes closing and sometimes opening their wings. Frequently so-called blue butterflies are so perverse that they are brown. This blue (left) was actually blue, however, and turned out to be a Common Blue (well, of course). Considering my amateur’s lens together with their small size and nervous disposition, I was pretty pleased with the result. The Small Copper (right) isn’t quite such a clear shot but it’s worth a look and will do me for now.

The thistles were doing the main work of attracting many of the critters. I managed to grab an even smaller butterfly that I think is a Small Skipper (left) and a striking moth called a Six-spot Burnet (right). The shot where I seem to have gate crashed two Six-spot Burnets having some fun together shows all six spots more clearly. Well, alright, all twelve spots since there are two of them. It looks as though there may soon be a lot more Burnets – far too many spots to count.

I must return if we ever get another dry day.