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.

For me, the summer school holidays are something to be endured. We endure it by being at home leaving the rest of the normally civilized world to be invaded by ear-shattering screamers. However, last summer I added dragonfly and damselfly (collectively, Odonata) spotting to my long-standing love of butterfly spotting and had a great time pursuing my new-found hobby at local nature reserves. Last year was a terrific year for butterflies with a diverse population being boosted by a quite well publicized “invasion” from the continent of Painted Ladies. Being a complete novice, I had no previous experience of Odonata levels but I did find a lot of activity.

This year, I was looking forward to some repeat nature spotting rather than thinking that half my summer had been hijacked. It seems to have been a tough year for our poor ol’ butterfly population. I’ve lost count of the number of sizeable Buddleia bushes I’ve seen without a single butterfly feeding on them. In fact, I’m hard pressed to recall any Buddleia with a butterfly on it. I suspect that our last, particularly harsh winter was at least partly responsible. On top of a bad winter, late July and August have been pants too, weather-wise.

Having said that, I did get out to our local Sandhouse Lane Nature reserve once or twice on days that were half-way reasonable. The level of Odonata activity definitely seemed lower than last year but a few of the more usual suspects were busily trying to make up for the apparent shortfall in population. The way most dragonflies go about adding to the population is that the male of the species spots a willing female of the species and grabs her by the neck using his appendages – projections from his abdomen designed for grabbing ladies around the neck. They are now in the so-called tandem formation. Eventually, still held firmly by the neck, the female curves her abdomen around and under the male to marry her vulvar scale to his secondary sex organ. The resulting circular formation is often called the copulation wheel or, perhaps more romantically, the copulation heart. Damselflies, in particular, form a very definite heart shape.

The most populous dragonfly species at Sandhouse Lane seems to be the Ruddy Darter. On my earlier (and sunnier) trip I had snapped a pair of Ruddy Darters “in tandem” preparing to mate. As usual in the animal world, it is the male dragonfly that is the more colourful and, as a result, often more readily identified. The female tends to be somewhat more drab, often brown/beige/dull yellow, and rather more similar looking. I have, in the past, frequently relied upon the fact that a female is firmly attached to a male to confirm an identification. Here, also confirmed by good old iSpot, is my sunlit tandem pair of Ruddy Darters.

As well as Ruddy Darters, Sandhouse Lane plays home to a population of Common Darters. On a subsequent and less sunny visit, once again I spotted a Ruddy Darter male firmly grasping a female by the neck. I again snapped the tandem pair, just because I could. Upon later study, I thought the female exhibited a different colouration from that in my first pair. In fact, this female looked more the colour of a male Common Darter. “Arghh! Wait – don’t panic!” I spotted that, colour aside, this specimen’s abdomen shape confirmed it to be female. All was well. I added it to iSpot to see if this apparent colour variation of the female might be age-related; they do, sometimes, darken and change with age.

Good decision! it transpires that this poor old male Ruddy Darter had, in fact, grabbed a female Common Darter by the neck. Well, at least he’d got the sex right, if not the species. What a turn up for the books. One of the resident specialists on iSpot had observed this sort of mismatch before but hadn’t got a decent photograph of such a pairing. Having put me straight, he requested a copy of the picture which I was happy to provide.

So, no more identifying females just because they are attached to a male.

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

Since the sun had decided to grace us with its presence for just about the first time in a few weeks, yesterday I took a break from trying to organize French wildlife in favour of trying to catch, photographically of course, some English wildlife. I took myself off to my favourite local location, Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve. It’s so great because, more often than not, I’m the only one there. That is, I’m the only mammalian biped there. Such was the case yesterday, although I think my six-legged friends were equally pleased to see the sun because there was some pretty frenetic insect activity.

Over the pond, Brown Hawkers (Aeshna grandis) were the first positive sign I saw as two or three tirelessly patrolled above the water. They didn’t seem too fussy about what they’d chase in the hope of a meal, even drifting seeds which, of course, they rejected. Quite frequently times they seemed to chase each other, much of which I’m sure is territorial aggression, but I did begin to wonder if they would actually be cannibalistic. I tried fruitlessly to catch one in flight but, alas, they didn’t seem to go into a hover. So intent was I on watching them hunt, that I almost missed one ovipositing in the pond almost at my feet. Hmm, maybe they weren’t chasing each other to be cannibalistic after all?

More action soon followed as a tandem pair of Ruddy Darters (Sympetrum sanguineum) positioned themselves perfectly on a leaf quite close to me. How generous of them. Sometimes standing still and waiting for the dragonflies to come to me seems to be more productive than going to them. In practice, of course, both techniques are required. Clearly the sun really was working magic as the tandem pair adopted the copulation wheel formation.

In good conditions, it is usual to see dragonflies and damselflies mating. I suspect that this is a feature of their precarious life as an adult; as soon as conditions turn favourable, there is a general rush to reproduce.

Right, where’s that sun?

[Ed: I think I’m going to have to call this Retroblog.]

A couple of years ago we were fortunate enough to have our camping pitch in the south of France (Montagnac) used by several cicadas for their emergence, their transformation into consenting adults. Since we were on top of the action in that case, I managed to record the sequence on my trusty old film camera. It is still in our web album section and remains a highlight of our contact with wildlife.

Dragonflies have a very similar lifecycle except that, whereas cicada larvae live underground for many years, dragonfly larvae live underwater for a  somewhat less time. The actual time seems to vary  by species but a year or two seems typical.

Dragonflies abound at our favourite French sheep farm campsite from which we have recently returned. This year I had noticed several husk on the outside wall of les sanitaires (the toilet and shower block) and had wondered if they might be bush crickets or some such. Dragonfly exuviae (larval cases) never occurred to me since they looked too small and, most importantly, were some distance from the lakeside. When ready to emerge, I thought dragonfly larvae clambered out of the water up the nearest suitable grass stem and performed their magical transformation right there. Not always, it seems.

One morning Carol rushed excitedly back to our pitch announcing that a dragonfly was emerging right now. Not for the first time in history, I shot off towards the toilet block armed with a camera, monopod and long lens. Why do insects continually encourage me into such freedom-threatening situations?  What is it about toilet blocks that attracts them? I really am going to get arrested one day.

Regrettably I had missed the actual emergence from the larval case and the new soon-to-be adult was hanging on it, as they do. Here, however, is a slightly reduced sequence of the wings and abdomen developing into the full-sized adult. It’s a Black-tailed Skimmer, by the way, but I can’t tell if it’s a female or a male since both start out a similar colour. Incidentally, young males are called teneral males.

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.

Two days ago at Sandhouse Lane Nature Reserve I watched a fellow snapper using a close focussing ring on a long telephoto lens (500mm in his case). I had discounted our old close focussing rings ‘cos I had tried them on my 17-85mm digital lens and they had not fitted. Digital lenses foul older non-digital mounts and will not fit. I thought no more of it. However, my brain jumped out of neutral with the sudden realization that my trusty old 75-300mm IS lens is not a digital-specific lens. I could try the same close focussing trick. Yeah! Back to Sandhouse Lane.

For this attempt I decided to try the middle-sized ring of our set of three: 21mm. This seemed to get my focus distance down from the “naked” 1.5m to about 1.2m. With a close focussing ring I can’t focus on infinity but I wouldn’t want to. Just for a little focussing practice, since this is all a manual exercise rather than automatic, I tried zooming in on some blissfully stationary flora, ragwort in this case. Of course, the fly was moving but not much. With a little judicious cropping I found myself rather liking the result (right). Carol thought the picture would be better if the fly were looking into the frame but it’s looking the way it felt like looking. One has to go with what one can.

Enough of practicing on static subjects and on with the main, more mobile subjects. Since it was perching very prettily, I couldn’t resist yet another shot of what I think is a female Common Darter (left). The purpose, after all, was to get more detailed shots using the lens ring rather than to find new subjects. I was using f11 (which gave me 1/500th) but even so, with this set up the depth of field is very narrow and focussing is a bear; sway a little on your feet and you’ve lost it. Eventually I began trying f16 and here’s what the business end of a Common [Ed: correction, 2010-02-08] Ruddy Darter looks like (right) when it stayed still for long enough, which, of course, mostly it didn’t. I may need some more practice before trying a larger focussing ring to get closer still, assuming the subjects would actually let me, that is.

Maybe because the sun was out, there was more courtship and mating activity going on over and around the pool so I removed the close focussing ring – there was no way I could focus on anything fast moving with that – and chanced my arm again. With the naked 300mm lens shots at these distances have to be heavily cropped (this shot is about 25% of the frame) and so get a little more fuzzy but here’s the best of the bunch showing a pair flying in the so-called tandem formation for a spot of ovipositing. Let’s face it, with the speed these pairs fly, my focussing is at best a swift grab, something of a guess. Worth a try, though, when you’re not wasting expensive celluloid. “They’re just reusable pixels, guv’ner.”

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.

Due to popular demand

I received a suggestion that I group together some of our insect photographs, mainly butterflies recently featured in this blog, to form a composite Insects photograph album. Since I was considering doing exactly that, I’ve done it. I was originally thinking “Butterfly Album” but then realized we had, over several years of travelling through France, collected several other insects of interest that might have objected to their omission.

For those sharing my fascination with our six-legged friends (from which category I personally may have to exclude wasps), the resulting album can be found at:

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/Insects/index.htm

This addition has caused a slight reorganizing of our photograph album index page but I think I prefer the change.