Pool And Pond.

Pleasantly checking Conder Pool and Saltcote Pond on Friday. Mostly cloudy, though a few sunny spells, and at best a chill wind on a day not unlike 6 March as opposed to it being 6 June.

Conder Pool.

I counted 22 Common Tern on the raft, with up to 5 chicks visible underneath the adults. I also counted 21 Black-headed Gull chicks on the raft today, and harmony seems to reign between the terns and gulls, but who knows if that will last....Time will tell!

My count today was of 16 Avocet, with only two on Conder Pool, and 14 on the creeks marsh including the only two surviving young. 

Little Ringed Plover. Pete Woodruff.

Throughout two visits to Conder Pool today, I had several sightings of Little Ringed Plover, but never saw more than two together. Also of note was a Little Grebe in breeding plumage, seen as a first record on Conder Pool for me. The Little Grebe doesn't breed here to my knowledge.

Other notes from Conder Pool, a drake summering Wigeon seen again, with 3 Tufted Duck and a lone Black-tailed Godwit.

Saltcote Pond.

Ruddy Darter 20 July 2023. Martin Jump.  

As can be seen in my header, Saltcote Pond is an attractive little pond, one of the nicest anywhere in our area. The pond's claim to fame being the location were Martin Jump found a rare Ruddy Darter 2 years ago on 20 July 2023. The Ruddy Darter is the second rarest regular breeding species in Lancashire. 

A male and female Broad-bodied Chaser and up to 12 Common Blue Damselfly, with a Chiffchaff and a singing Sedge Warbler was skulking in the Reedmace here.

As I walked around the edge of the pond I spotted a pair of Common Blue Damselflies in tandem. The female appeared to be completely submerged, but as I got closer, the male released the female and flew off. I soon convinced myself this female floating on the water was drowning, in an attempt to rescue I broke of a Reedmace leaf and managed to encourage the damselfly to the edge and out of the pond clinging to the leaf. 

It was a female Common Blue Damselfly of the blue form, not an uncommon form, but are often outnumbered by greenish and brownish ones.

Common Blue Damselfly blue form. Pete Woodruff. 

Drying out its wings was a first for me, as I've never before seen a damselfly at rest with opened wings....Looking away for a second to check the camera settings, it had flown off.

Ruddy Darter.

A male Ruddy Darter was found yesterday at Saltcote Pond near Glasson Dock. My take on this discovery is open to challenge on statistics, but this is what I can say with the most up to date data from 2015.

The Ruddy Darter Sympetrum sanguineous is one of the rarest of our areas breeding dragonfly species, second only to the Golden-ringed Dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii, a statistic I would personally be inclined to doubt, but that's another issue. The Ruddy Darter requires still waters for breeding, alongside another of Lancashire's least widespread breeders, the Emerald Damselfly Lestes sponsa. 

The number of probable/proven breeding sites is no more than a mid-single figure and includes Heysham and Middleton Nature Reserves, and Bank Well at Silverdale, from where a worrying event took place following the last record of Ruddy Darter in 2011, when it was suggested that the introduction of Goldfish into the site, may have had a detrimental effect on the dragonfly fauna there.

As far as abundance of Ruddy Darter is concerned in our immediate local area of Lancashire, just two sites can claim to have had double figures counts, those at Middleton and Bank Well, with 12 at the former in August 1999, and 10 at the latter in 2010.

Ref:The Dragonflies of Lancashire and North Merseyside.

So a Ruddy Darter at Saltcote Pond on 20 July 2023 is excellent news for our area....Well done Martin Jump, and congratulations. 

The Last Push.

Probably my last visit up Clougha Pike this year, though I may just squeeze in one more before the end.

Stonechats. Gary Jones on Facebook

There was a little reward for the slog up here yesterday, with the sight of 3 Stonechat which were seen as a lone female on Clougha, and a male and single young on the top of Birk Bank, despite my hanging around a while I found no others with these two, though time and determination may well have uncovered more of a family group gone to ground.

I was well satisfied with the other 22 rewards - this is upland birding remember - with 11 Meadow Pipit, 4 Wheatear, 3 Red Grouse, 2 Raven went honking over, changing direction a couple of times, before flying east to soar over Clougha summit. Raptors seen, a Sparrowhawk, and about five Kestrel sightings were maybe all of the same bird. Butterflies were, 5 Red Admiral, 4 Painted Lady, 4 Peacock, and singles of Small Tortoiseshell and Meadow Brown.

Common Darter. Birk Bank 15 August. Pete Woodruff.

I looked over the bog on the way to Clougha, and called back five hours later on the way back down. In perfect sunny, hot, and very calm conditions both visits, I found up to 8 Common Darter including a pair in tandem ovipositing....

Black Darter. Birk Bank 15 August. Pete Woodruff.

....a male Black Darter....

Black Darter (female). Pete Woodruff.

....and what I think is a female Black Darter seen briefly on the board-walk in the small and poor quality picture above.

Thanks for the Stonechats Gary, much appreciated. 

Willow Emerald Damselfly.

Ruddy Darter. Ian Tallon.

This is becoming weird as I have another mind reader on my hands. Ian sent me this photograph at the same time I had decided some brief notes on the subject of the title would be interesting...Thanks for this Ian, it was good to hear from you again.

I've seen a report from RBA - which can be linked from my sidebar - of two Willow Emerald Damselflies (WED) at Strumpshaw Fen in Norfolk today, yesterday there was one of an amazing fifty near Trimley Marsh in Suffolk.

As with other wildlife of the world which can be known by more than one name the Willow Emerald Damselfly is also known as the Western Willow Spreadwing and has a sister species the Eastern Willow Spreadwing (EWS) from which it can only be reliably separated under magnification, both are easily noted for their vivid green colour, large size, and habit of hiding/hanging in trees and bushes sometimes far from water. They are the only European damselfly to lay eggs in live wood -  the Willow Emerald exclusively so - though the EWS is known to oviposit also in non-woody materials.

Until recently the WED was inexplicably absent from Great Britain even though suitable habitat abounds here but there are thoughts it is possibly slowly spreading northwards. South-eastern limits are poorly understood because of the confusion with it's sister species the EWS, southernmost European records are from Sicily, northern Greece and SE Bulgaria.

 

   Four-spotted Chaser. Phillip Tomkinson.

I'm grateful to Phillip for recently allowing me to post some of his photographs on Birds2blog, his website can be seen HERE  

I recommend having UK Dragonflies in your favourites, and Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe, Klass-Douwe B Dijkstra on your bookshelf.