Sunday 17th July saw the return of the BTCV Species Identification courses here at Langford, as I took a group around the site to learn about dragonflies and damselflies. At the beginning of the day I was slightly concerned about the weather – it was cool and very windy, with the threat of rain looming!
So, we set off around the public footpath, as I started to introduce the subject, giving the group a taster of what was (hopefully!) to come. The public footpath is usually alive with insect life on a nice day, but it took us a full 45 minutes of searching the wet vegetation to find a specimen to look at! However, it was worth the wait as the group were delighted by a beautiful little blue-tailed damselfly. A very delicate looking species, thin bodied with bright green coloration on the thorax and a stunning blue segment towards the end of it’s abdomen.
As we made our way over to Phase 1, the sun started poking out from behind the rather black looking clouds and our hopes were raised when we spotted a hobby hunting dragonflies over the reedbed. And as if on cue, a brown hawker appeared and obligingly sat for the group to examine closely.
After lunch, we made our way down onto the dragonfly pond and got good views of common darter, common blue damselfly and more blue-tailed damselflies, just in time before the finally caught up with us, half an hour before the end of the course!
All in all, a successful day despite the weather, with everyone enjoying themselves and coming away having learnt something. Thanks once again to the BTCV, particularly Ian Cattell for organising the course.